From the Heart Nebula in Cassiopeia to the Rosette Nebula in Monoceros, there is a lot to love about the night skies of February.
This month’s asterism challenge for beginners: the Winter Hexagon. An asterism is a picture in the sky that is not an official constellation — it might be a small “picture” within a constellation (Orion’s Belt within Orion, for example), or it might consist of stars from two or more constellations. The Winter Hexagon falls in the second category as it includes bright stars from several prominent constellations.
Starting with Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, move clockwise to the hexagon’s vertices at Procyon, Castor and Pollux (a single vertex), Capella, Aldebaran, and Rigel. Connecting Rigel and Sirius completes the hexagon. Good luck!
Celestial highlights this month:
- 1 — New Moon. It’s the best time of the month to look for Deep Sky Objects. The temperatures should be comfortable, so take a telescope or binoculars and get out to a dark location.
- 2. Just after sunset, Jupiter and a very thin crescent Moon should make a beautiful pair in the Western sky. This “conjunction” will place them within about 4 degrees of each other.
- 9. Venus reaches its peak brightness, as seen in the morning sky just before daybreak.
- 16 — Full Moon. It’s nicknamed the Snow Moon by some ancient Native American tribes.
- 16 — Mercury Mornings. Little Mercury is hidden by the Sun’s glare most of the year, but in mid-February, it will be about 26 degrees above the horizon just before the Sun rises. This is one of your best chances to see it this year.
- 27. There will be a conjunction of Venus, Mars, and the crescent Moon in the Eastern sky before dawn. They will appear in a straight line low on the horizon.
Not just love is in the air this February. Here are some interesting launches:
- The United States Space Force is planning two launches this month using a powerful Falcon Heavy rocket from SpaceX and an Atlas V 551 rocket from United Launch Alliance. We haven’t seen a Falcon Heavy launch since June 2019, so it is a long-awaited treat! No specific launch date has been set as of this writing.
- There is also a tourism mission planned by a private company called Axiom, which will use a Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket. Again, no launch date has been set as of now.
Hope you love these winter nights, stargazers!