SKY GUIDE: This map represents the night sky as it appears over Maine during January. The stars are shown as they appear at 10:30 p.m. early in the month, at 9:30 p.m. at midmonth, and at 8:30 p.m. at month’s end. Jupiter is shown at its midmonth position. To use the map, hold it vertically and turn it so that the direction you are facing is at the bottom. Sky Chart prepared by Seth Lockman
The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who faces forward and backward at the same time. Janus is the god of transitions, passages, doorways, gates and the god of all beginnings. There are several great celestial highlights in January that will make it well worth your effort to bundle up, get outside and look to the skies.
They include the long-awaited return of Mars to the morning sky around the middle of the month. Mars will then perform a celestial dance with Venus and Mercury in the southeastern morning sky, including a very close conjunction of Mars and Mercury on Jan. 27. Saturn and Jupiter remain as the evening planets and they are both back to their normal direct, eastward motion again with respect to the fixed background of stars. Then we will be treated to nice conjunctions of the moon with Saturn around the middle of the month and then Jupiter a few days later.
Then there are not one, but two comets that will be visible with binoculars or a small telescope. These are Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks in Cygnus the Swan and Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan in Virgo. The second brightest asteroid, Vesta, will pass through Taurus near Orion, and the best highlight of all of them will be a favorable display of the Quadrantid meteor shower during the morning of Jan. 4, with a last quarter moon setting around midnight.
Mars is finally making its reappearance in the morning sky this month after a long absence when it was too close to the sun and as far away from Earth as it will get in its 26-month span between oppositions, when it is at its best and brightest and closest to Earth. That will not happen again until January 2025. Look for the red planet very low in the southeastern sky 30 minutes before sunrise, right below Venus and Mercury in the constellation of Scorpius.
The slender waning crescent moon will nicely point out Venus on Jan. 8, as it will also occult Antares that morning for the western part of this country. Then the moon will be 12 degrees farther east the next morning and can be seen right below Mercury on Jan. 9. Mars is a little lower than that, and you may need binoculars to see it. After that, Mars keeps rising higher and Mercury keeps getting lower. The two will meet on the morning of Jan. 27 when they will be just a quarter of a degree apart, which is half the width of the full moon. You will need binoculars to see this very close conjunction well enough to appreciate it.
Venus still rises around 4 a.m. and is moving into Scorpius now, the next constellation to the east of Libra where it was last month. It shines at minus 4th magnitude and is still getting smaller but more illuminated by the sun as it gets farther ahead of Earth in its orbit around the sun. Watch how these three planets – Mercury, Venus and Mars, our three nearest neighbors in the solar system – dance around each other in the morning sky this month.
Jupiter ended its retrograde motion on Dec. 31 and is now back to its normal eastward or direct motion in Aries the Ram, heading toward Taurus once again. It is still quite high and brighter than usual, but it is getting slightly less bright each night. Shining at minus 2.5 magnitude, the king of the planets is about 4 times brighter than Saturn at first magnitude. Venus is 100 times brighter than Saturn. Every five magnitudes equal 100 times difference in brightness.
Saturn is still in Aquarius, where it will spend just over two years as it always does in each of the 12 zodiac constellations, since it takes Saturn 29 years to orbit the sun once. The ringed planet now sets by 9 p.m. and we will lose it into the western sky late next month. Look for a bright star named Fomalhaut in Pisces Austrinus 20 degrees to Saturn’s south-southeast, which is just slightly fainter than Saturn. Watch as a waxing crescent moon passes close to Saturn on Jan. 13 and Jan. 14.
The second occultation of Antares by the moon in a whole series of such occultations ending in August 2028 will happen on Monday morning, Jan. 8. The first one was last summer on Aug. 24. It will only be visible west of here in this country and in parts of Canada and Mexico. Antares is a red supergiant star 550 light years away with a diameter of about 700 times that of our sun.
The comets starring this month are 62P/Tsuchinshan and Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks. 62P/Tsuchinshan will be traveling through the sky just below Leo and into Virgo right through the Virgo cluster of 2,000 galaxies this month. It should reach its brightest of 7th magnitude, just two and a half times fainter than anything you could see without optical aid, early this month. It went through perihelion, closest to the sun, on Christmas Day. The best time to look for it this month will be during the moonless stretch from Jan. 5 through Jan. 22. It is moving eastward at about half a degree per day.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks only returns every 71 years. It was first discovered by Jean-Louis Pons in 1812 and then lost and rediscovered by William Brooks in 1883. It will only reach about 10th magnitude, so you would need a telescope to spot it.
The second largest asteroid, Vesta, is easy to spot now at 7th magnitude passing from Orion into Taurus to the left of Jupiter. It will pass just below the Crab Nebula, M1, from Jan. 11 to Jan. 13.
The best highlight of the month, if it is clear, will be the annual Quadrantid meteor shower, which has a very narrow peak of 4 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, Jan. 4. You could expect between 30 and 40 meteors per hour all originating from its radiant near the Big Dipper and Draco the Dragon.
JANUARY HIGHLIGHTS
Jan. 1: In 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the largest asteroid, Ceres, which is 600 miles in diameter, or about the size of Texas. Mercury is stationary.
Jan. 3: Last quarter moon is at 10:30 p.m.
Jan. 4: The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks this morning.
Jan. 5: The moon is near Spica in Virgo this morning.
Jan. 6: Venus passes 6 degrees north of Antares this morning.
Jan. 8: Stephen Hawking was born in 1942. The moon occults Antares in parts of this country west of us, and it will pass less than 1 degree north of Antares for us in the east.
Jan. 9: The moon, Venus and Mercury will form in the east before sunrise.
Jan. 10: The moon passes 4 degrees south of Mars this morning.
Jan. 11: New moon is at 6:57 a.m.
Jan. 14: The moon passes near Saturn this evening. On this day in 2005, the Huygens probe landed on the shore of a liquid methane lake on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.
Jan. 17: First quarter moon is at 10:53 p.m.
Jan. 25: Full moon is at 12:54 p.m. This is also known as the Old or Wolf Moon.
Jan. 27: Mercury and Mars are only a quarter degree apart very low in the eastern morning sky in Sagittarius 45 minutes before sunrise.
Bernie Reim of Wells is co-director of the Astronomical Society of Northern New England.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
