Podcaster: Ralph & Paul

Title : Awesome Astronomy’s February Sky Guide

Organization: Awesome Astronomy

Description:What to look out, and up, for in February.

We start with the big bold northern hemisphere constellation of Orion. The swollen supergiant Betelgeuse, 5 stars in one in Sigma Orionis, and the magnificent Orion Nebula stellar nursery.

Next up, a four body conjunction of Venus, Mars, Uranus & the moon, while Jupiter dominates overhead. There are a few stars occulted by the moon this month, while Comet Lovejoy continues to delight binocular and telescope observers. Then we round up the best of the deep sky offerings for the month in the Ursa Major constellation.

For those in the Southern Hemisphere, 365 Days of Astronomy also play Alice Enevoldsen’s What’s Up Tonight, Southern Skies Edition each month.

Bio: Awesome Astronomy is the show for anyone and everyone who has even the slightest interest in astronomy and science.

Join Ralph & Paul twice each month, for informative and fun astronomy programs telling you what to look out (and up) for every month. You can be guaranteed a passion for astronomy, simple explanations of complex and fundamental topics, space and science news, absorbing interviews with astronomers who make the news and listeners’ astronomy questions answered

Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2015, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.

Transcript:

Paul: February stumbles into view like the extended hang over from that new year party you’ve only just started to remember and while it may be tempting to sit in, chuck another log on the fire and dream of summer time astronomy, don’t be for February is one of the great skies to get out and see with winter constellations high in the evening and those spring delights ready to tempt you into pulling an all nighter. We have a comet still giving us great views, a planetary get together, the moon blunders into some stars and as it’s the season, more of those Jovian moon mutual events. But before we look at all of that, Ralph what have you got lined up for our beginners?

Ralph: Well, this month we’re going to return to the dominant Constellation in the south and that’s Orion. We gave you a teaser about Orion a few months ago and it’s time to get back to it now that it’s looking its best this month.

On the 1st of February, Orion will be nice and high in the sky as soon as its dark and dead south, 45 degrees high by 8:30pm. So you can observe this winter gem of a constellation at a reasonable time throughout February.

Now the first thing to mention about Orion is that it’s a beautiful constellation in its own right. The unmistakable shape of the three belt stars with stars hanging below it to form the sword of the mythological hunter. And framed by 4 bright stars, beautifully named, going clockwise from top left Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel and Saiph. The sword isn’t just stars either. There’s a huge swirling mass of dust and gas giving birth to new stars, and you can see this for yourself. But we’ll come onto that later.

The first star in that list, orangey-red Betelgeuse is a red supergiant – a star coming to the end of it’s life and bloating out before it explodes in a supernova. It’s bloated so much that if it were in our solar system it would’ve gobbled up Mercury, Venus & Earth and Mars. When it does finally explode, we’ll get a few days notice of this explosion in the form of a stream of neutrinos but when Betelguese does go pop sometime in the next a million years it’ll pose no risk to us whatsoever but we will get a star brighter than Jupiter and Venus for a few weeks and then a nice brand new supernova remnant nebula for future generations to enjoy. At 650 light years away, it might have already happened and we could now just be waiting for the light to reach us.

So, now we go from 1 star to five stars. Find the the left-hand star in Orion’s belt, Alnitak, and drop down towards the ground, less than a degree (about the width of your little finger held at arm’s length) and there should be another bright star in that spot called Sigma Orionis. With a low power eyepiece you should see this as one star or maybe a pair of bluey-white stars. But if you crank up the magnification with higher power eyepieces, you’ll see these stars split into four or even five. This five star system sits close to the famous Horsehead and Flame nebulas in Orion – you won’t see those at the eyepiece but a long exposure DSLR camera image – especially if it’s fitted to your telescope will bring out these hidden treasures and I guarantee, they’ll make you gasp.

Now finally, if you wait until the second week of February, the moon won’t be around for a few hours after sunset letting you tease out the deep sky treats in Orion – and most notably the magnificent Great Nebula in Orion. If you haven’t seen this wonder of the night sky – now’s the time! This is the closest star forming region to Earth – a cloud of gas and dust swirling under the attractive force of gravity 1,350 light years away. This gas & dust is being compressed to ignite into new stars and that’s why it’s often referred to as a ‘stellar nursery’. Even under the most light polluted city skies, you’ll easily see the four stars that make up the Trapezium Cluster at its heart and a large patch of fuzzy nebulosity – but under dark skies, you’ll be surprised at how much of that nebulosity you’ll see. It looks to me kind of like a soaring bird and seeing it in a scope of any size really will blow you away if you haven’t seen this nebula before. There’s also thought to be a black hole sitting there 2000 times more massive than our sun.

To find the Orion Nebula, just look at the stars that make up Orion’s sword and seem to hang down from the line of stars, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka in Orion’s Belt. Nothing more difficult than that. Focus on the stars in the sword and you have the Orion Nebula.

Paul: Thank you Ralph and now it’s time to turn our attention to our local neighbourhood and see what is available to see in our Solar System.

The planetary highlight this month occurs between 20th and 22nd of the month and this is the conjunction of Venus and Mars with the added attraction of the moon and a distant Uranus. Now in terms of telescopic detail this conjunction will rate more on the fun and beautiful to look at rather than the astounding features list, but none the less here are four of the solar systems major bodies in the same patch of sky with Venus and Mars just half a degree apart and certainly a modest scope should be able to discern the gibbous phase of Venus. Mars so distant now will be just a small pinkish disc while Uranus likewise at the wrong end of this apparition will be picked up to the left of the moon as a small green disc about 1.5 degrees or so away in binoculars on the evening of the 21st. Venus is the better placed though and especially with coloured filters it may be possible to discern some cloud detail.

Jupiter is at opposition this month on the 6th so this is the best time to get your clearest views of the king of planets sitting on his throne between Cancer and Leo. There are some more mutual events to enjoy all month with two of the highlights being a occultation of Io by Europa at just before 10pm UT followed by Europa’s shadow on the 7th, two days later there is another double with a Ganymede Io event on the 9th with first Ganymede occulting Io just before 9pm UT followed by Ganymede’s shadow falling over Io shortly after. On Jupiter’s surface itself we have a double transit on the night of the 21st with the moons and shadows of Callisto and Io falling on the disc in the evening.

The remaining three planets are not well placed this month, Neptune and Mercury clinging to the Sun while Saturn is in Scorpius rising about 5am for those at latitude 51 and will give you a brief window of observation before the Sun rises but doesn’t achieve much altitude.

The moon this month hits full on the 3rd at 11.09pm UT and moves to last quarter at 3.50am UT on the 12th. New moon occurs on the 18th at 11.47pm UT while first quarter is reached on the 25th February at 5.14pm UT. Other than an encounter with Uranus there are some other events to look our for with the moon this month. Three bright star occultations with Lambda Geminorium occulted on the first day of the month just after 6.20pm UT, 76 Leonis after 9.15pm UT on the 7th and 79 Leonis after 12.45am UT on the night of the 6th/7th. Turning to the end of the month the moon decides to go crashing through the Hyades cluster in Taurus on the 25th, which will make a for a great binocular target and something for DSLR owners to aim for.

Comet Lovejoy has been the surprise object of the winter and has certainly charmed many. It is moving away from us now and has passed its closest encounter with the Sun but it still has much to offer through the month and this month it passes into Andromeda. It’ll be around 18 degrees from M31 on the 1st but more interesting encounters occur on the 3rd as it passes by galaxy NGC891 and later on the 20th it’ll be about half a degree from M76 the little dumbbell nebula.

For our deep sky tour this month I am going to point you in the direction of one of the most famous asterisms the plough or big dipper in Ursa Major and more specifically the bowl or blade because here are three overlooked messier objects and a large cluster of bright galaxies the Ursa Major group. The first to look for is planetary nebula M97, or the owl nebula. This is close to the star Merak, the bottom right hand star as you look at the asterism the right way up, though this month you will likely be viewing the plough vertical in the north east so it will be the top right hand star. In a dark sky you will easily find this large round planetary as you move your scope away from Merak, it is called the owl nebula because larger scopes will see two large darker circles in the disc that give the impression of an own looking back at you. The chances are that if you are keen eyed and have a good sky you will stumble upon another messier before you reach M97 and this is near edge on spiral M108. This is the first of the galaxies to look for in the Ursa Major group and stands alone away from the rest. M109 really appears to sit at the heart of the Ursa Major cluster and this can be located close to the star on the bottom left of the bowl, Phad. NGC3631 NGC3953 are the other bright members of the M109 sub group with 3631 not far from the owl nebula and further from the bowl, while 3953 is just to the south of M109 itself. This cluster is a spiral rich grouping and there are several other fainter targets inside and the south of the bowl, NGCs 3726, 3938, 4051 are a brighter grouping to the south, below Phad and M109.
So I wish you happy hunting and clear skies.

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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