As mentioned in last month’s column, following its striking conjunction with the planet Jupiter, radiant Venus made a beeline right for the famed Pleiades Star Cluster (popularly known as “The Seven Sisters”). On the evenings of April 2nd and 3rd, our lovely “Evening Star” will move through (across) portions of this glittering stellar jewelbox, the combo looking like a brilliant gem set amid sparkling blue-white diamonds!

Be sure to mark Monday and Tuesday evenings, April 2nd and 3rd, on your calendar. About 45 minutes to an hour after sunset if skies are clear, you’ll see the brilliant planet Venus hovering in the western sky just under (or on top of, depending on your latitude) the lovely Pleiades Star Cluster. While an intriguing sight with the unaided eye (a matter of how sharp your vision happens to be!), this pairing will be an ideal target for your 7×50 or 10×50 Edmund binoculars, which will easily encompass both planet and cluster with plenty of sky around them. So too will a wide-field telescope like the Edmund Scientifics’ Astroscan with its amazing 3-degree field (that’s six Full-Moon diameters of sky!) at 16x.

The Pleiades itself is the best-known and brightest open cluster in the sky, containing dozens of stars as seen in binoculars — and hundreds viewed in larger telescopes. Venus’ slow motion across the cluster will be noticeable over a period of hours, especially in the latter glasses. There’s also the possibility of seeing Venus actually cover up (or occult) and then uncover some of the cluster members, but this will definitely require a telescope using enough magnification to show its brilliant disk well (50x to 100x is recommended here). If you see the planet close to a star, carefully watch it to determine if it’s heading right for it. The chance of actually witnessing an occultation is remote (none are predicted) and depends heavily on your geographic location. But just seeing Venus in close proximity to the cluster’s stars will be exciting in itself.

There’s an added treat here for skywatchers. It turns out that Venus will be at its greatest brilliancy in April. And contrary to logic, it’s not brightest when fully illuminated — because it’s then on the opposite side of the Sun from us, and quite distant and small. It actually appears the brightest in our sky when in the crescent phase! That’s when it’s on “our side” of the Sun, relatively close to us, and displays a huge crescent which reflects much more sunlight Earthward than does its tiny disk when fully illuminated. The bottom line here is that the crescent Venus will be a beautiful sight in telescopes even at low powers, and it can also be glimpsed through carefully-focused and steadily-mounted (or image-stabilized) binoculars.

One other April event worth mention is that of the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower, which peaks on the night of the 21st-22nd. While not a rich display, it has on occasion surprised observers with many more “shooting stars” than normal. And this time, maximum occurs on the same night as the New Moon, so moonlight will not interfere at all with visibility.

— James Mullaney
Former assistant editor at Sky & Telescope magazine & author of eight books on stargazing.

As March opens, skywatchers will be treated to the rare opportunity of seeing Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Sirius, the Moon and Mars all above the horizon at the same time after sunset. And while each of these objects is itself a wonderful telescopic sight, this event is best enjoyed using the unaided eye alone to sweep across this celestial panorama.

Stepping outdoors about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset the first three evenings this month, an amazing display of the sky’s six brightest objects will be found spread out from the southwestern horizon to the eastern one. Lowest in the west is the shy and elusive planet Mercury (which may require your Edmund binoculars to be well seen, depending on how bright the twilight sky is at the time you look). It’s followed higher up (and eastward) by dazzling Venus — which, as the third brightest object in the entire heavens after the Sun and Moon, can’t possibly be missed! Higher yet is Jupiter (which, as described below, will come very close to Venus at mid-month). Next is the brilliant blue-white star Sirius in the south, brightest of all the stars in the heavens. Roughly above it will be the gibbous Moon and, finally, further to its east fiery Mars. Wow — what a spectacular celestial lineup this will be!

As the month progresses, Mercury will quickly drop lower in the west and disappear into the sunset while the Moon will continue its never-ending eastward journey around the sky. Interestingly, although Mercury will have been lost to sight, Saturn rises in the east later in the evening to take its place — still leaving six of the sky’s luminaries above the horizon at the same time! But there’s more happening this month, involving the two brightest of the planets. Keeping an eye on Venus and Jupiter from night-to-night, you’ll notice the two worlds drawing closer together. On the evenings of March 12th and 13th, they will be just 3 degrees apart, both easily fitting into the field of view of any binocular. And here telescope owners will want to examine each of these objects separately, just 25x being enough magnification to show their dissimilar disks (and Jupiter’s four bright Galilean satellites).

While the two planets appear close together in the sky at this time, in reality they are quite far apart in space — Venus being about 75,000,000 miles from us and Jupiter 525,000,000. (But compared to Sirius, they are right in our backyard. Among the closest stars, it lies over 50 trillion miles from our Solar System!) These lovely worlds afterward slowly separate, ending up some 15 degrees apart by the end of March and with Venus moving higher in the sky on its way to a spectacular conjunction next month with the famed Pleiades Star Cluster (be sure to check out the April Sky Talk about this event).

— James Mullaney
Former assistant editor at Sky & Telescope magazine & author of eight books on stargazing.

Mark the evenings of February 25th and 26th on your calendar. If clear, head out after sunset and look toward the western sky. There you will see two of the brightest objects in the night sky—the planets Venus and Jupiter—being “sideswiped” by the brightest of all nighttime objects, the Moon. The spectacle will be readily visible with the unaided eye, and a truly fascinating sight in binoculars.

Other than a meteor shower, the occasional bright comet, or an eclipse, most people think of the sky as static and unchanging. But nothing could be further from the truth—everything in the sky is constantly in motion! The most obvious example of this is the slow movement of the stars from east to west due to the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis. And the very word “planet” comes from the Greek for “wanderers,” indicating that ancient skywatchers recognized that these bodies moved in relation to the stars themselves.

Venus and Jupiter are currently slowly drawing closer together each week as they prepare to meet in a spectacular celestial embrace (or “conjunction”) in March that will be covered in the next issue of Sky Talk. Most of this movement is due to Venus rapidly gaining altitude in the sky and catching up to Jupiter. On the evening of February 25th, Venus will be joined by the beautiful crescent Moon to its upper right. The following evening, the Moon will have moved upward (actually eastward in the sky) and to the right of Jupiter. The view on either of these evenings through your Edmund binoculars will be quite a sight! And should you have a rich-field telescope with a very wide field of view such as the Scientifics’ Astroscan Plus, both Moon and planet may actually fit in the same eyepiece field for a brief time. Whether using binoculars or telescope, be sure to notice the “Earthshine” illuminating the dark portion of the Moon itself. As discussed in past Sky Talk installments, this is sunlight from the Pacific Ocean where it’s still daylight reflecting back onto our satellite. (This glow is also visible to the unaided eye.)

Through a telescope at a magnification of about 30x, Venus will appear just over half-full (or slightly gibbous) during February. The best time to observe it is during twilight when the bright sky background cuts down on the glare from this radiant orb, which overpowers the planet in a dark sky. At the same magnification, Jupiter’s four bright Galilean satellites will be visible in constantly changing positions as they orbit the giant planet. And after it passes Venus and Jupiter, the Moon moves out of the scene in its never-ending eastward journey, clipping along at an orbital velocity of over 2,200 miles per hour. Truly, the heavenly canopy above us is not static but rather an ever-changing (and absolutely free) skyshow!

—James Mullaney
Former assistant editor at Sky & Telescope magazine & author of eight books on stargazing.

With so much hype and misinformation concerning the year 2012 currently in books, on television, in movies, and the subject of various conferences, this month’s column is designed to hopefully bring some science and common sense to this sensational topic as we begin the much-heralded year marking the end of the fabled Mayan calendar.

Let’s begin by asking just what’s so special about the “Galactic Alignment” we’re hearing so much about? Nothing! Every year on or about December 21st the Sun “aligns” with the center of our Milky Way Galaxy at the Winter Solstice. Supposedly it’s going to be more closely lined up than in recorded history. Yet, as is well-known to astronomers, it was actually closer to the center in 1998! (This stems from the subtleties of the galactic and ecliptic coordinate systems, which space prohibits covering here.) But in any case, the Sun will still be several degrees from being exactly over the galactic center in 2012. Even more significant is the fact that the alignment is only an apparent one—the actual center of our Galaxy is 26,000 light-years away (that’s 26,000 x 6,000,000,000,000 miles!). There can be no sudden drastic influx of radiation precisely at midnight on the 21st from the nucleus’ black hole devastating the Earth’s population, as is being claimed by some—nor will we be sucked in as others fear!

There’s also the “Great Dark Rift” that’s being talked a lot about as a kind of “roadway” into the center of the Galaxy. What’s being referred to is one of the many areas of dark obscuring clouds of gas and dust that line the spiral arms of the Galaxy. And there are at least six of these arms, with our Solar System here in the galactic boondocks being imbedded in an outer one. The dark rift seen in the summer and fall Milky Way in our local arm does not lead to the center of the Galaxy!

The thing that really puzzles me the most about the 2012 fiasco, as an astronomer, concerns the planet Venus. As the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon, this radiant orb held great importance to the Maya. And yet a very rare and spectacular event involving Venus that will occur during 2012 has been largely ignored by 2012 writers and speakers. On the late afternoon of June 5th, Venus will transit the face of Sun—an event that can be seen even with the unaided eye! (The transit will be featured in the June installment of Sky Talk along with tips on safely viewing it.) This happens in pairs separated by 8 years—the last having occurred in 2004—and then not again for more than a century (2117 being the next one)! Surely the Maya attached great significance to this spectacle. Should we not also?

I would like to conclude on a positive note about 2012. Raising public consciousness of the universe and our place in it as citizens of our home Galaxy is definitely happening because of all the attention being focused on 2012. This in turn leads to that “cosmic perspective” that my late friend and mentor Carl Sagan always talked about and felt was crucial to our survival as a species. In that sense, this year of 2012 is indeed significant.

—James Mullaney
Former assistant editor at Sky & Telescope magazine and author of eight books on stargazing.

Wow — what a month for celestial events! Crammed within the space of just three weeks, sky watchers will be treated to a total eclipse of the Moon (for those on the West Coast), the annual Geminid Meteor Shower, and brilliant Venus posing as our Christmas Star. And all of these sights require nothing more than the naked-eye and a clear night.
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