What Can Be Said About the Tonight's Night Sky in These Two Places?
February 2022
What'southward Upwards for Feb? Jupiter makes its leave, Venus at peak brightness, and the star-forming deject next door.
With the divergence of Saturn and Venus over the past two months, Jupiter is the only bright planet left in our twilight skies in February, and it'due south on its way out! The behemothic planet stands solitary, depression in the western heaven later sunset in February. By mid-month, information technology's setting just about an 60 minutes after the Sun. Once Jupiter departs at the stop of February, the post-sunset heaven will be essentially devoid of naked-middle planets until Baronial, when Saturn will start ascent in the e around sunset. (In that location'south a short menstruum, though, in April and May when you might be able to spot Mercury as it pops briefly above the horizon.)
Jupiter is the lone naked-eye planet afterwards sunset in February.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Y'all'd have to go dorsum 4 years, to March of 2018, to find twilight skies with no bright planets. Then catch Jupiter before it's gone. And look for it to get a morning time planet in April.
Speaking of morning skies, the planet Venus volition be at its brightest for the twelvemonth in February, around mid-calendar month. It rises with Mars around 4 a.k. and is visible low in the southeast until sunrise. Venus is the brightest of all the planets in our solar system because of the highly reflective clouds that completely cover its globe.
Venus forms a trio with Mars and the crescent Moon on Feb 26.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
But its brightness in our skies varies, depending on how far it is from Earth and on its phase. Turns out Venus is brightest not when it'southward closest to Earth, but when it's almost at its closest and still shows us a large, bright crescent phase.
So enjoy the crescent Venus that is the planet at its brightest. And wait for Venus to grade a trio with the Moon and Mars on the forenoon of February 26th.
February is a perfect fourth dimension to enjoy i of the most pop and well-studied sights in the nighttime sky: the Great Nebula in Orion. The Orion Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born. In fact, it's the nearest large star-forming region to our solar organization, at around one,500 light-years abroad. The vivid, key region of the Orion nebula is a giant cavity in the cloud being carved out past the intense ultraviolet light from a handful of extremely massive immature stars.
Notice Orion high overhead on February evenings, where the Orion Nebula is an easy target for binoculars and telescopes.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Finding the Orion Nebula is piece of cake on February nights, as the constellation Orion will exist high in the south around 8 or ix p.thou. Look for the iii stars of the hunter'due south belt, and and so find the stars that hang beneath it forming Orion'south sword. In the eye of this line of stars is one that looks kind of fuzzy. That'south the nebula. Information technology's visible to the unaided eye under relatively night skies, and is easily seen with binoculars as a faint brume. And through a telescope, it's a sight you'll never forget.
Source: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/current-night-sky
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