Skywatch Line for Wednesday and Thursday, February 14 and 15, 2024, written by Alan French
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Wednesday and Thursday, February 14 and 15, 2024, written by Alan French.
The Sun rises at 6:54 A.M. on Wednesday and sets at 5:25 P.M. On Thursday it rises at 6:53 and sets at 5:26. This Thursday has 18 ½ minutes more daylight than last Thursday.
The Moon, new last Friday, is now headed toward first quarter, which it will reach late next Friday morning. On Wednesday, as darkness falls, look for the crescent Moon toward the southwest. At 6:30 P.M. the Moon will be 51 degrees above the horizon and the visible face 32% in sunlight. Bright Jupiter will be just 5 degrees to the upper left of the Moon. The pair will be a pretty sight.
At 6:39 P.M. on Thursday the Moon will be farther east, 62 degrees high, and 43% in sunlight. Jupiter will be just under 10 degrees below and slightly right (west) of the Moon.
With the Moon high in the sky and the terminator approaching the meridian, either night would be good for exploring the lunar landscape with binoculars or a telescope.
The active Sun continues, with CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) hurling energetic particles into space. Some of these come toward Earth, where they can trigger a geomagnetic storm and northern lights. The best way to catch a display of northern lights is to make a habit of checking the north to northwestern sky on every clear night. While active displays can involve the entire sky, displays are more common low toward the north to northwest.
High overhead in the early evening is the bright star Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer. It is the sixth brightest star in the night sky and the first magnitude star closest to the north celestial pole. It attracts attention when it is low in the north northeast early in the evening in the fall.
Like most bright stars, Capella is bright because it is a relatively close neighbor, lying just under 43 light years away. The light you see now left the star in early 1974. Also like many other stars, although
Capella looks like a single star by eye, it is a multiple star system. It consists of two binary pairs. The primary pair is two giant stars, each about 2.5 times the diameter of our Sun. The secondary pair
contains two red class M dwarf stars.
The five main stars of Auriga, including Capella, outline a rough pentagon. Five degrees southeast of Capella is a distinctive triangle of stars know as “The Kids.” Charioteers looked after chariots, horses, and
other livestock, and Auriga is sometimes depicted holding young goats in old star atlases.
Three open clusters on Charles Messier’s famous list of deep sky objects lie in Auriga. Known as M36, 37, and 38, for their positions on his list, these compact groups of young stars are popular targets for
amateur astronomers and their telescopes.