![[Starwatch Logo]](StarwatchLogo.gif)
|
Starwatch NewsletterMinnesota Starwatch is a newsletter describing the night sky in the Midwest.
It is updated monthly, and is produced by the |
Minnesota Starwatch for January 2008
The crystalline nights of early January can be plenty cold, but they also offer some great opportunities for star watching. Dress warmly and take the family outside to catch the best show of New Year's Eve. It's star-studded, and entirely free!
Mars and Mercury will be this month's reigning evening objects. Mars is especially bright this month. Look for it high in the east in early evening. Mercury is also worth watching this month, particularly after the 20th when it appears low in the southwestern sky at around 6:00pm. That week, there will also be a beautiful full moon to catch your eye after you've had your fill of observing Mercury.
The undisputed morning star this month is Venus. It will rise a couple of hours before the Sun in the southeastern sky. Early in the month, on January 4th and 5th, Venus will provide a lovely show as the crescent Moon slowly passes by.
On the night of the 4th you may decide never to go to bed at all, since the hours after midnight that night are the best time to observe the Quadrantid meteor shower. The waning crescent moon won't really interfere with the show, but if the night is crystal clear, a sharp observer might see as many as 100 shooting stars at the shower's peak. Of course, shooting stars (or meteors as they are properly known) aren't really stars at all. In truth, meteors are fragments of cosmic debris that enter the atmosphere at extremely high speed. When they encounter friction from the atmosphere, the meteors vaporize, leaving a rapidly disappearing streak of light. Most of the fragments of cosmic debris are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all fragments disintegrate long before they hit Earth's surface. If a larger piece of debris fails to vaporize, it becomes that extremely rare phenomenon, a meteorite, at the moment it strikes Earth. Unlike meteors, meteorites have an impact that goes way beyond the purely visual.
Happily, the Quadrantids are unlikely to produce a meteorite in your vicinity, so you can gaze on them with calm wonder, knowing that they get their name from an obsolete constellation known as Quadrans Muralis. Even deep space gets cluttered -- at least in the minds of stellar mapmakers -- so in 1922, the stars of Quadrans Muralis were reassigned to the constellation Bootes.
Speaking of constellations, truly sharp-eyed observers might just find that an exceptionally clear night in January makes it possible to see with the naked eye all nine stars of one of the most famous star clusters, the Pleiades. Named for the family of the mythological Atlas -- he who held the world on his shoulders -- the Pleiades are made up of nine stars; one each for Father Atlas, mother Pleione and their seven beautiful daughters. In Greek mythology, the seven sisters were the prey of the hunter Orion, who was so dazzled by their loveliness that he was quite unable to settle on any one of them. For seven years, he pursued them all with such ferocity that Zeus eventually took pity on the maidens and cast them into the heavens, there to dwell among the stars.
But that's not where the story ends. Eventually, Orion the Hunter also ended up in the heavens, where, caught in time and space, he forever pursues -- but never catches -- his lovely prey.
You might reflect on the myth when you look for the star cluster. Orient yourself by locating the three stars of Orion's Belt, one of the most distinctive landmarks of the winter night sky. Then let your eye travel to the northwest up into the sky where the small cluster of the Pleiades appear, forever beyond Orion's reach.
Friday night telescope viewing at the University of Minnesota Astronomy Department begins at 8pm. Please call (612) 626-0034 for more information.
The Como Planetarium in St. Paul's Como Park offers limited star shows. For more information, call (651) 293-5398 or check their website at www.planetarium.spps.org.
For fun Astronomy Outreach programs check out our Public Outreach link, or if you're interested in how you can help build the new Minnesota Planetarium, please call 612-630-6151 or visit http://www.mplanetarium.org.
The Minnesota Starwatch is produced by the University of Minnesota Astronomy Department.