Observing Calendars

January Observing Calendar   Crisp winter nights challenge your commitment to star-gazing, but the rewards can be gratifying. Mid-month a full moon will obscure many of the objects of interest. You will want to choose a viewing time when the moon is not dominating the night sky. Find Pleiades facing east and nearly overhead (see December comments). Scan toward the eastern horizon about 10 degrees and to the left (north); spot the bright yellowish star Aldebaran. This is the "eye of the bull" in the constellation Taurus. Follow the "horns of the bull" to the north and east. In the approximate center of this "V" is a moderately bright star Zeta Tauri. M1, the Crab Nebula, is about two moon diameters north. Go back to Aldebaran, nudge a little to the right or south and find the Hyades star cluster. This is an ideal target for small telescopes and binoculars. Looking north from Aldebaran, find the two stars making a "V". The lower one will be very close to the exceptionally bright "star"... Saturn. Get out as many eyepieces as you have. You can spend hours viewing Saturn at low power with a wide field of view, or up close at high magnification. This is one of the great "gee-whizzes" of the winter sky. Saturn is eight astronomical units (AU) from earth. An AU is a standard unit of measure used by astronomers, particularly when working within the solar system. An AU is the distance from the sun to earth, approximately 92 million miles. So when you look at Saturn, you are looking at light that traveled 736,000,000 miles to reach you! Look for the moons of Saturn. You should be able to spot at least three, maybe five. Can you split the rings? Saturn's ring is really three rings. You may distinguish all three, but probably only two. Notice the banding on the surface, distinguish the ring's shadow from the surface features. Don't miss it... invite your friends... enjoy! Now, pull yourself away from Saturn and find the other star forming the "V" of Taurus. It is higher, toward the zenith, and is nearly horizontal with Aldebaran. Draw an imaginary line from Aldebaran to this star and continue left until you come to a grouping of five stars forming a pentagon. The topmost and brightest star is Cappella. This is the constellation Auriga, The Charioteer. There are three open clusters that are good telescope and binocular subjects in Auriga. Connect an imaginary line between the base stars in Auriga and the Taurus "V" star. Halfway between these two stars are M37, M36, and M38. Slowly scan down and to the left from the halfway point. You will come to a prominent grouping of stars. This is the open cluster M37. M37 is the finest cluster in Auriga. Burnham wrote in his Celestial Handbook... "C.E. Barns described it as a diamond sunburst." It is composed of at least 150 stars spread over 25 light-years and is about 4,100 light-years away. Now move back along the same direction and pass through that imaginary line toward the interior of Auriga. You should come to another grouping that will be less compressed than M37, but still discernable from the background stars. This is M36. M36 has about 60 member stars and is about 4,100 light-years distant also. Continue along this path and you should come to M38. M38 is comprised of over 100 member stars. Some observers note a cross structure in its center. It is about 4,200 light-years distant and about 21 light-years across.