<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hold the phone!\u00a0 February begins as January ended with the exciting opportunity to see a deep space comet that last passed our neighborhood some 50,000 years ago.\u00a0 There are already copious numbers of photos plastered all over the internet of what is being called \u2018The Green Comet\u2019 due to its greenish hue.\u00a0 <\/span>Comet C\/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.)<\/b> should be visible to anyone with a clear view of the North Star with a little patience.\u00a0 Making its closest approach to Earth on February 2, 2023, the comet comes within 26.4 million miles of our planet when it will still be 110 times the distance between us and the Moon.\u00a0 It will be faintly visible to the naked eye so binoculars may help.\u00a0 Its maximum magnitude is predicted to be around 5.4 – not spectacular, but still worth the time to look for.\u00a0 One does not get to see many comets in a lifetime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The comet was first spotted by astronomers on Palomar Mountain, California in March of 2022 with a telescope at the Zwicky Transient Facility, thus the origin of the name.\u00a0 As C\/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.) nears the Sun, ultraviolet radiation is being absorbed by molecules in its icy coma (or head).\u00a0 The molecules in question are diatomic carbon (two carbon atoms fused together) and this reaction emits green light.\u00a0 Since it made its closest approach to the Sun on January 12, the comet has been slowly moving through the constellation of <\/span>Draco the Dragon<\/b>.\u00a0 If you can use the <\/span>Pointer Stars<\/b> at the \u2018cup end\u2019 of the <\/span>Big Dipper<\/b> to trace a line to the <\/span>North Star<\/b> located at the end of the handle of the<\/span> Little Dipper<\/b>, then you have a chance to spot it in early February.\u00a0 To locate it, visually trace the line between the Big and Little Dippers until you see a greenish smudge – that will be the comet.\u00a0 Unlike the quick steak of light one sees with a meteor, comets move much slower and are thus visible over many nights.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dark skies would aid anyone trying to see Comet c\/2023 E3 but the <\/span>Full Moon<\/b> will take place on February 5 – not exactly great timing.\u00a0 The <\/span>Last Quarter Moon<\/b> (Feb 13), <\/span>New Moon <\/b>(Feb 20) and the <\/span>First Quarter Moon <\/b>(Feb 27) will round out the change from the old to the new Lunar cycle this month.\u00a0 On Feb 22, the <\/span>Young Crescent Moon<\/b> will have a very close encounter with <\/span>Jupiter <\/b>that can be observed in the WSW sky one hour after sunset.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Speaking of Jupiter, the period from February 19 to March 11 will see a <\/span>Venus-Jupiter <\/b>pairing in the western sky that will make for some entertaining sky watching.\u00a0 They will begin and end their dance about 10 degrees apart (the width of your closed fist held at arm\u2019s length) on Feb 19 and March 11.\u00a0 On Feb 24 and March 6, they will be closer at 5 degrees (the width of three fingers held in a Boy Scout salute).\u00a0 If you can see where this is heading, the Ju-Ve pairing will be separated by a mere 0.5 degrees (half the width of your pinky finger nail) when viewed in the WSW sky one hour after sunset on March 1.\u00a0 <\/span>Saturn<\/b> will also be located in the western sky but it is very close to the horizon at sunset and will drop from sight entirely by mid-month.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Other random notes about February sky events:\u00a0 <\/span>Mercury<\/b> will be visible just above the eastern horizon (and just left of the <\/span>Tea Pot Asterism<\/b> found in <\/span>Sagittarius, the Archer<\/b>) in the hour just before sunrise.\u00a0 It would be a good observing challenge because A) you need to be up at sunrise and B) it will be very, very close to the eastern horizon.\u00a0 On Monday Feb 27, look for <\/span>Mars <\/b>just to the left of the First Quarter Moon.\u00a0 It should also be noted that the Moon will reach <\/span>apogee <\/b>(its farthest distance from the Earth at 252,572 miles)\u00a0 at 4 a.m. EST on Feb 4.\u00a0 We recently discussed the phenomenon called <\/span>Zodiacal Light<\/b>.\u00a0 This is a faint glow of diffuse sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust that faintly illuminates the night sky.\u00a0 When it happens before sunrise, it is sometimes called \u2018false dawn\u2019.\u00a0 During the period between Feb 8 and Feb 20,\u00a0 the Moonless skies will provide an excellent opportunity to try and observe Zodiacal Light at the end of evening twilight.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Coming up in the near future will be a continuing series of the monthly <\/span>conjunctions <\/b>of the Moon and Venus with the best one occurring on June 21.\u00a0 Venus will also be \u2018chasing\u2019 Mars through the Zodiacal Constellations before it finally gives up the chase and the distance between them again begins to increase.\u00a0 As always, more information on these and other sky observing events can be found on the Sky Callendar Extra Content Page at <\/span>www.abramsplanetarium.org\/msta\/<\/span><\/a> .<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 There are not that many songs about comets – but Journey has one – this is Kohouteck performed live in Osaka in 1980<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hold the phone!\u00a0 February begins as January ended with the exciting opportunity to see a deep space comet that last passed our neighborhood some 50,000 years ago.\u00a0 There are already copious numbers of photos plastered all over the internet of what is being called \u2018The Green Comet\u2019 due to its greenish hue.\u00a0 Comet C\/2022 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2749,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions\/2749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h1>\n