The Sky This Week: 12-18 Feb 2003
The Moon waxes in the evening skies this week. Full Moon occurs on the 16th at 6:51 pm Eastern Standard Time. February’s Full Moon is popularly known as the Snow Moon, Hunger Moon, or Wolf Moon. Luna starts the week off between the yellow glow of Saturn and the Twin Stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux. On the evenings of the 14th and 15th, look for her near brilliant Jupiter. On the 16th she passes just north of Regulus, heart of Leo, the Lion.
The play of moonlight over snow-covered fields seems to add to the splendor of the winter night sky. Cold air is generally clean air, and the stars seem to stand out even in the presence of the Moon. As the planet radiates heat into space, the stars seem to twinkle like mad, and none more so than Sirius, the brightest star in the night. The Dog Star stands on the meridian, due south at around 9:00 pm. If you’re up late, watch the star set. As its light passes through the denser layers of Earth’s atmosphere, it flickers through all the colors of the spectrum in a dazzling and colorful dance.
Saturn straddles the meridian as darkness envelopes the sky. The early evening is the best time to see the golden glow of this distant world. The ringed planet spends the early evening hours perched high overhead, a perfect target for the small telescope. The view of Saturn has always instilled me with a sense of serenity and wonder at the order of the beautiful rings and the bevy of tiny moons that swarm their majestic master.
Jupiter receives a visit from the Moon over the weekend. Jupiter is also a great telescopic treat, but where Saturn projects order, Jupiter harbors chaos. His tortured cloud belts whirl around the planet’s middle at dizzying speed, and when they return to view with each 10-hour rotation they have changed dramatically. Jupiter’s face only hints at the monstrous forces hidden below the clouds, but these forces are thankfully hundreds of millions of kilometers from the eyepiece.
The morning sky still hosts brilliant Venus and dimmer ruddy Mars. Both planets are visible in the hour before dawn. Venus is low on the southeast horizon at 6:00 am, while Mars lies about 25 degrees to Venus’s upper right. Go another 10 degrees and you’ll see another red-tinted glow from the star Antares, lead star of Scorpius, the Scorpion. Just before the sun comes up, at around 7:00 am on the morning of the 17th, you may be able to catch a fleeting glimpse of Comet 2002 V1 NEAT, a “sun-grazer” that will pass about a million miles from the Sun’s searing face. This will be your only chance to see it, though, since its orbit keeps it close to the Sun for the next several weeks as it fades.
