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2009: International Year of Astronomy

By Lewis McCool

In History

Jan. 4-15, 1610 Galileo makes remarkable discoveries while viewing the heavens through his new telescope.

Jan. 8, 1942 Birth date of cosmologist Stephen Hawking.

Jan. 20, 1573 Birth date of Simon Mayr, who gave Jupiter’s four Galilean moons their Greek names.

Jan. 31, 1958 The U.S. orbits its first satellite, Explorer 1.

Feb. 4, 1906 Birth date of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.
Feb. 6, 1971 U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard, commander of Apollo 14, takes the first golf shots on the moon.

Feb. 15, 1564 Birth date of Galileo Galilei.

Feb. 19, 1473 Birth date of Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, who theorized that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun.

Feb. 20, 1962 Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth.

Moon Phases

First quarter Jan. 4, 4:56 a.m.; Feb. 2, 4:13 p.m.
Full Jan. 10, 8:27 p.m. (Wolf Moon); Feb. 9, 7:49 a.m. (Snow Moon).
Last quarter Jan. 17, 7:46 p.m.; Feb. 16, 2:37 p.m.
New Jan. 26, 12:55 a.m.

If it weren't so darn cold, January might be the best month of the year for stargazers. It delivers long, dark nights. The rich constellations of Taurus and Orion are prominent in the evening. And one of the most intense, most reliable, if short lived, meteor showers is on display.
The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Jan. 3. The waxing crescent moon sets well before midnight, leaving the early morning hours plenty dark for catching the display, which occasionally produces as many as 120 "shooting stars" per hour, although 10 to 60 per hour is more typical.
The shower's radiant point is in the northern sky in Quadrans Muralis, a constellation dropped from star charts two centuries ago. The point is near the junction of Hercules, Bo�tes, and Draco.
Those of you who were fortunate to get a new telescope (or scope accessory) for Christmas, now is a good time to check out some easy - and beautiful - deep space objects.
Orion is full of gas. The stunning Orion Nebula (Messier 42) should be one of your first targets. Check out the other diffuse nebulae in the vicinity too.
Taurus, above Orion, hosts the Pleiades (M45), arguably the most beautiful open star cluster and binocular target in the night sky. Nearby is the Crab Nebula (M1), the remains of a star that exploded as a supernova in 1054. At magnitude 9, it shows up as a faint, fuzzy object in modest telescopes.
A worthwhile target looms in the south in the constellation Sculptor. It's the Sculptor Galaxy. Glowing at magnitude 7, it has a relatively bright center and some dark lanes visible in a scope.
Three planets will be visible near the western horizon after sunset in early January.
Jupiter (magnitude minus 2) is dropping rapidly and will be in conjunction with the sun on Jan. 23. Mercury (magnitude minus 0.6) reaches its greatest eastern elongation on Jan. 4, and Venus (magnitude minus 4.5) reaches its greatest eastern elongation on Jan. 14.
By the third week of January, only Venus will remain visible in the evening sky. Mercury and Jupiter will reappear in the morning sky in mid-February. A faint Mars will join them.
It's hard to believe but the Mars Exploration Rovers have been tooling around on the Red Planet for five years. Spirit landed on Jan. 4, 2004, and Opportunity Jan. 25.
Brilliant in Aquarius, Venus will be impossible to miss after sunset. It moves into Pisces in late January and, after dark, will be bright enough to cast a shadow on a snow-covered field.
If you look for Saturn (magnitude 0.8) with a scope, you'll have no trouble finding it, but you'll likely notice that the familiar rings are practically missing. Their tilt is slight, and they'll be edge-on as viewed from Earth this summer.
The planet, in Leo, rises around 10:30 p.m. in early January and nearly three hours earlier by mid-February.
Dwarf planet Ceres (magnitude 6.5), the first asteroid to be discovered (1801), is moving around in Leo too. Although it's too small and distant to show up as a disk in amateurs' scopes, you can follow its movement from night to night as it loops around the magnitude 2.5 star Zosma (Delta Leonis).
To stimulate interest in astronomy and science, 2009 has been designated the International Year of Astronomy by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). For details, visit astronomy2009.org.
The earth is at perihelion (closest to the sun) on Jan. 4.

Lewis McCool writes from his home near Dolores, Colo., where he can take advantage of clear nights and dark skies.