Night Sky Almanac 2023: A stargazer’s guide

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This month the constellations Lyra and Cygnus are seen almost overhead as darkness falls with their bright stars Vega, in Lyra, and Deneb, in Cygnus, making up the "summer triangle" of bright stars with Altair in the constellation Aquila below. (see sky chart above) Lyra On March 3, the waxing gibbous Moon is 1.7º south of Pollux (mag. 1.1) the brightest star in Gemini. On March 6, one day before Full Moon, it is 4.5º north of Regulus (mag. 1.4) in Leo. By March 10 it is 3.4º north of Spica and by March 14, one day before Last Quarter, it is 1.6º north of Antares in Scorpius. On March 19, the waning crescent is 3.6º south of Saturn (mag. 0.8). At New Moon, on March 21, it is 2.4º south of faint Neptune (mag. 0.8). The next day in twilight, it passes south of Mercury, and then 0.5º south of Jupiter (mag. -2.1). On March 24, the Moon occults Venus, partly visible from southeast Asia. On March 26, the waxing crescent is 8.7º north of Aldebaran in Taurus. It passes 2.3º north of Mars and on March 30 is again 1.6º south of Pollux. The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa 2 obtained the first sample of asteroid Ryugu on 21 February 2019. August 30: Saturn hovers just above the Full Moon after nightfall. As Saturn’s at its best, it’s now easiest to identify with the Moon as aguide.

Night Sky Almanac 2023 By Storm Dunlop, Wil Tirion, Royal

Cygnus, the Swan, is sometimes called the "Northern Cross" as it has a distinctive cross shape, but we normally think of it as a flying Swan. Deneb,the arabic word for "tail", is a 1.3 magnitude star which marks the tail of the swan. It is nearly 2000 light years away and appears so bright only because it gives out around 80,000 times as much light as our Sun. In fact if Deneb where as close as the brightest star in the northern sky, Sirius, it would appear as brilliant as the half moon and the sky would never be really dark when it was above the horizon! Such far northern observers will also find that Castor (α Geminorum) is actually circumpolar, although at times it is extremely low on the horizon. The other bright star in Gemini, Pollux (β Geminorum) is slightly farther south and cannot really be considered circumpolar. The image by Damian Peach was taken with a 14 inch telescope in Barbados where the seeing can be particularly good. This image won the "Astronomy Photographer of the Year" competition in 2011. Most of the brightest stars have names officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. A list of these, with their Bayer designations and magnitudes, is given here.Cygnus lies along the line of the Milky Way, the disk of our own Galaxy, and provides a wealth of stars and clusters to observe. Just to the left of the line joining Deneb and Sadr, the star at the centre of the outstretched wings, you may, under very clear dark skys, see a region which is darker than the surroundings. This is called the Cygnus Rift and is caused by the obscuration of light from distant stars by a lane of dust in our local spiral arm. the dust comes from elements such as carbon which have been built up in stars and ejected into space in explosions that give rise to objects such as the planetary nebula M57 described above. The key constellation when learning the pattern of stars in the northern sky is Ursa Major, in particular the seven stars forming the asterism known to many as the 'Plough’ or to people in North America as the ‘Big Dipper’. As the chart shows, this is just circumpolar for anyone at latitude 40°N, except for Alkaid (η Ursae Majoris), the last star in the ‘tail’. Even so, the asterism of the Plough is low on the northern horizon between September and November, so it will be much easier to make out at other times of the year.

NIGHT SKY ALMANAC 2023: A stargazer’s guide - Goodreads NIGHT SKY ALMANAC 2023: A stargazer’s guide - Goodreads

January 31 • Mars is occulted by the Moon. Times of disappearance and reappearance are given for Houston and Mexico City (as seen from central USA). On February 3, two days before Full Moon, the Moon passes 1.9° south of Pollux in Gemini. One day after Full Moon, it is 4.5º north of Regulus in Leo. On February 11, it is 3.5º north of Spica in Virgo. On February 14, one day after Last Quarter, the Moon is 1.8º north of Antares in Scorpius. On February 19, one day before New Moon, it is 3.7º south of Saturn in Aquarius, but this will be lost in twilight. The same problem will apply on February 21, when the Moon is 2.5º south of Neptune, which is faint at mag. 7.9. The next day, the Moon is 2.1º south of Venus, which is mag. -3.9, so will be visible in the evening twilight. Later the same day, the Moon is 1.2º south of Jupiter (mag. -2.1) in Pisces. On February 28, the Moon is 1.1º north of Mars, in Taurus.When the Moon passes through the Earth’s shadow (top), a lunar eclipse occurs. When it passes in front of the Sun (below) a solar eclipse occurs.