Astronomy - February 2014

10°

Mid-February, 4 A.M.

Looking south

OPHIUCHUS

VIRGO

CORVUS

CENTAURUS

SCORPIUS LUPUS

LIBRA

Mars

Spica

Saturn

Antares

Mars and Saturn grow brighter (^)
February 1, 30 minutes after sunset
Looking west-southwest
AQUARIUS
PEGASUS
Fomalhaut
Enif
Moon
Mercury
10°
The Moon and Mercury (^)
36 ASTRONOMY t FEBRUARY 2014
Visible to the naked eye
Visible with binoculars
Visible with a telescope
MARTIN RATCLIFFE and ALISTER LING describe the
solar system’s changing landscape as it appears in Earth’s sky.
February 2014: Venus shines brilliantly
P
lanets adorn the night
sky from dusk to dawn
in February. Just one
month removed from its
peak visibility, Jupiter
provides a smorgasbord of
details from sunset until the
wee hours. Mercury continues
to shine brightly in the eve-
ning sky in early February,
but it soon passes between the
Sun and Earth and re-emerges
before dawn at month’s end.
The morning sky also offers
superb views of Mars and Sat-
urn as they approach their
springtime peaks. But the
focus of naked-eye observers
during the predawn hours has
to be Venus, which shines at
its brightest this month.
As February opens, inner-
most Mercury is in the midst
of its best evening apparition
for northern observers during

2014. (It peaked at greatest
      elongation January 31.) On the
      1st, the planet lies 11° high in
      the west-southwest 30 min-
      utes after sunset. Coinciden-
      tally, Mercury appears the
      same distance below a slender
      crescent Moon. Grab your
      binoculars and scan halfway
      between the Moon and the
      horizon. You shouldn’t have
      any trouble spying the planet,
      which shines brightly at mag-
      nitude –0.6.
      Mercury fades quickly
      during the next week, dim-
      ming by 0.2 magnitude with
      each passing day. It dips to 1st
      magnitude by February 7 and
      becomes difficult to spot in
      the twilight. Just a week later,
      on February 15, it passes
      between the Sun and Earth
      and slips into the morning
      sky, where we will visit later.
      Uranus provides more of
      a challenge to binocular
      observers. In mid-February,
      the magnitude 5.9 planet
      stands about 20° above the
      western horizon as twilight
      fades to darkness. Look for it

in southern Pisces some 5°

southwest of 4th-magnitude

Delta (δ) Piscium. On Febru-

ary 3, the planet lies 3° south

of the crescent Moon.

Don’t confuse Uranus with

a similarly bright star just 0.5°

to its east. You can tell the two

apart through a telescope,

which reveals the planet’s

3.4"-diameter disk and blue-

green color. Uranus lies within

0.25° of this same star from

February 11 to 18, and their

relative motion from night to

night should be easy to spot.

After the challenge of spot-

ting Uranus, Jupiter will seem

like a breeze. The planet gleams

at magnitude –2.5 and stands

some two-thirds of the way to

the zenith in the eastern sky as

darkness falls. Jupiter reached

opposition and peak visibility

in early January and shows

little decline this month. The

giant world’s disk shrinks only

slightly, from 46" to 42" across,

which is still plenty big enough

to show fine details through

telescopes of any aperture.

Look for two dark equatorial

belts sandwiched around a

brighter equatorial zone on

any clear night. When Earth’s

turbulent atmosphere settles

down and the jovian disk

appears exceptionally crisp,

look for a whole series of alter-

nating belts and zones.

Jupiter lies in the central

part of Gemini the Twins. This

region passes nearly overhead

for Northern Hemisphere

observers in mid-evening and

doesn’t set until after 4 a.m.

local time. The planet moves

westward against the starry

background during February,

ending the month some 2°

south of 3rd-magnitude Epsi-

lon (ε) Geminorum.

The world’s four bright

moons offer endless enter-

tainment. Once in a while,

the satellites line up in order

of their distance from the

planet. The evening of Febru-

ary 24 provides perhaps the

month’s best opportunity to

see such an alignment. Io then

lies east of and closest to the

planet with Europa, Gany-

mede, and Callisto lined up

in order west of Jupiter.

As each moon orbits the

giant planet this month, it

experiences a similar sequence

SKYTHIS

MONTH

Mars and Saturn climb higher in the sky after midnight as they both prepare

to reach their peak this spring. ASTRONOMY: R O EN K EL LY

Martin Ratcliffe provides plane-

tarium development for Sky-Skan,

Inc., from his home in Wichita,

Kansas. Meteorologist Alister

Ling works for Environment

Canada in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Moon points the way to Mercury in early February, when the innermost

planet appears near its maximum altitude after sunset. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY