{"id":3044,"date":"2023-12-19T23:37:47","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T23:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3044"},"modified":"2023-12-19T23:39:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T23:39:36","slug":"astrocal-january-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=3044","title":{"rendered":"AstroCal – January 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Happy New Year! You can begin your observing for the new year in the early morning hours of January 1 – 40 minutes before sunrise -4.0 magnitude <\/span>Venus<\/span> will be shining brightly in the SE.<\/span><\/p>\n

Venus will be at superior conjunction on the far side of the <\/span>Sun <\/span>on June 4 so we will see the distance between the planet and the rising sun decrease from 37 degrees to 31 degrees during January. This also means Venus will be getting farther and farther away from the <\/span>Earth <\/span>and dropping lower toward the horizon each month. The phase we see will rise from 78 percent lit (spanning 14 arcseconds) to 86 percent during the month, but the increasing distance will see the planetary disk reduced to 12 arcseconds.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Mercury <\/span>will be visible to the lower left of Venus in the morning twilight. The innermost planet reaches its highest elevation above the horizon on Jan 8 and its greatest elongation 23.5 degrees west of the Sun on Jan 12. Mercury\u2019s magnitude on Jan 1 will be +0.4 and it will increase to -0.3 by the end of the month (remember, the smaller the magnitude number, the brighter the object will appear). <\/span>Mars <\/span>will be faint at the beginning of the month and may require binoculars to see to the lower left of Mercury through Jan 26. Thereafter, the <\/span>Red Planet<\/span> will appear to the upper right of Mercury which will be dropping lower in the sky each day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The evening planets will continue to feature <\/span>Jupiter <\/span>high in the SE one hour after sunset. It will be in prime viewing position as it crosses toward the SSW during the night. Located in the constellation of <\/span>Aries, the Ram<\/span>, Jupiter will shine at mag 2.6 early in the month and -2.4 by Jan 31. <\/span>Saturn<\/span> can be seen in <\/span>Aquarius, the Water Bearer<\/span> with a magnitude of +0.9 as it sinks from the SW to the WSW horizon. The rings will be seen at 9.1 degrees and reduce to 7.7 degrees from edge on as the month progresses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Charts to find <\/span>Uranus<\/span> and <\/span>Neptune <\/span>can be found at <\/span>abramsplanetarium.org\/msta<\/span> along with information about the occultation of <\/span>Antares.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lunar <\/span>highlights for January will include the <\/span>Last Quarter Moon <\/span>on Jan 3 and the <\/span> <\/span>occultation of <\/span>Antares <\/span>(mentioned above) on Jan 8. The <\/span>New Moon<\/span> of the new cycle will take place on Jan 11, with the first very young <\/span>Crescent Moon <\/span>visible low in the SW on Jan 12 and 13. The <\/span>First Quarter <\/span>can be seen on Jan 17 and the <\/span>Full Moon <\/span>will brighten the night skies on Jan 25.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This month\u2019s Historical Astronomy event was detailed for the American Astronomical Society by Cornell University\u2019s Philip Nicholson. Nicholson recalls it was in early January 1610 that Galileo looked heavenward with his newly improved telescope. As he focused on the planet Jupiter, he found that there seemed to be three bright stars (soon to be joined by a fourth) that accompanied the planet in its daily motions. It did not take many days of observation for Galileo to realize these \u2018stars\u2019 were orbiting Jupiter much like our Moon orbits the Earth. Coupled with the phases of Venus he saw near the end of 1610, he had gathered strong support for the Copernican model of the Solar System. Unfortunately for Galileo, church doctrine of the day favored the \u2018Earth-centered\u2019 universe and his support of the \u2018Sun-centered\u2019 model branded him as a heretic. When he refused to alter his views (although he did print a tepid retraction that more or less ended with a \u2018but I am not wrong\u2019), he was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though he was correct in his embrace of the Copernican theory, it would take more than 300 years for Galileo\u2019s \u2018crime\u2019 to be stricken from the books. Had he not had friends in high places, he probably would have suffered the same fate as his contemporary, astronomer Giovani Bruno, who was burned at the stake for making similar heretical statements. There is an excellent book out there (<\/span>Galileo\u2019s Daughter<\/span> by Dava Sobel – 1999) based on surviving letters of his daughter (the nun Suor Maria Celeste) that explores their relationship. The \u2018Galilean Moons\u2019 are easily seen with binoculars and the continued presence of Jupiter in our winter skies gives everyone a great opportunity to explore them just as Galileo did 414 years ago this month.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span>, Michigan State University. More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on X (formerly Twitter) at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>. Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Top Piece Video – Okay – we have winter, U2 uses winter in their\u00a0New Years Day\u00a0<\/em>video – so we went with it!<\/p>\n

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Happy New Year! You can begin your observing for the new year in the early morning hours of January 1 – 40 minutes before sunrise -4.0 magnitude Venus will be shining brightly in the SE. Venus will be at superior conjunction on the far side of the Sun on June 4 so we will see […]<\/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-3044","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\/3044","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=3044"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3047,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3044\/revisions\/3047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}