{"id":491,"date":"2019-12-29T20:26:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T20:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=491"},"modified":"2020-01-04T18:50:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T18:50:24","slug":"january-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/january-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The\nnew month and the new year start with Saturn barely detectable in the\nevening sky. The ringed planet sets not long after the sun does. But\nVenus is shining bright in Capricornus a bit higher. A nearly first\nquarter moon is on the meridian as the sun goes down on the 1st<\/sup>.\nTaurus, Orion, and Gemini are our friends to the east, rising as\ndarkness sets in. Leo is rising by late evening. Virgo rises after\nmidnight. And as you wait for dawn, there isn’t much planet watching\nto do. You’ll catch a glimpse of Mars between Libra and Scorpius.\nJupiter and Mercury are rising as the sun does, so you don’t get to\nsee them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By mid-month, Saturn is no longer there at all in the evening sky. Venus is moving into Aquarius. And Mercury is on its way into the evening sky. You’ll see a thin, crescent moon next to Mercury on the 25th<\/sup>. Mercury becomes easier to see the next few nights as the moon passes by Venus on the 27th<\/sup> and 28th<\/sup>. That would be a great time to look at Venus in a telescope. Not only will you see the planet in a gibbous phase, you’ll see a pale blue dot that is Neptune nearby. The two planet are just 0.1\u00b0 apart on the 27th. The thin crescent moon should offer little interference. By the 31st<\/sup> Mercury is heading into Aquarius and Venus is next to the lower fish’s head in Pisces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In\nour morning sky looking east, Mars passes by Acrab in the scorpion’s\nclaws on the 7th<\/sup>.\nThe moon will pass Mars on the 20th<\/sup>.\nAround mid-month, you may be able to see Jupiter emerging into the\nmorning sky. The moon is close to it on the 22nd<\/sup>.\nSaturn is also emerging into the morning sky, but it will be too\nclose to the sun to see it when the moon passes it on the 23rd<\/sup>.\nIt will require a clear horizon, but you may be able to see Saturn\nrising on the 31st<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\nmoon is at first quarter on the 3rd<\/sup>.\nThere’ll be a penumbral lunar eclipse when the moon is full on the\n10th<\/sup>.\nLast quarter is on the 17th<\/sup>.\nNew moon is on the 24th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Most\nof Africa, nearly all of Europe, nearly all of Asia, part of\nAustralia, and Greenland will be in the visibility region for the\npenumbral eclipse. The outer part of Earth’s shadow will cross the\nmoon from 17:08 to 21:12 Universal Time. If you could watch from the\nmoon, you’d see a partial eclipse of the sun as Earth passes in front\nof the solar disk. From Earth, you see some darkening or a tint\nchange in the light the moon reflects. Clouds, forest fire smoke, and\nvolcanic ash in Earth’s atmosphere can all affect the sunlight that’s\nrefracted on the way to the moon and affect the eclipse’s tint and\nshading. In this eclipse, the southern part of the moon may appear\ndarkest around the middle of the eclipse as that part of the moon\ncomes close to the central part of Earth’s shadow. But it won’t\nappear nearly as dark as it would in a partial or total eclipse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\nmoon crosses the equator going north on the 3rd<\/sup>.\nIt’s at its farthest north on the 10th<\/sup>,\ngoes south of the equator again on the 16th<\/sup>,\nreaches southern lunistice on the 23rd<\/sup>,\nand crosses northward again on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunar\napogee is on the 2nd<\/sup>\nat 404,700 km. Perigee is on the 13th<\/sup>\nat 365,900 km. A second apogee is on the 29th<\/sup>\nat 405,400 km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earth’s\nperihelion occurs on the 5th<\/sup>\nat 147 million km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nquadrantids meteor shower peaks at around 7 or 8 hours UT on the 4th<\/sup>.\nThe radiant is near the Big Dipper. For North American viewers, the\nmoon will have set. So if you’re up in those early morning hours,\nlook north. This meteor shower has a narrow peak. So if you look too\nsoon and go back to bed, you may miss it. Same if you get up too\nlate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new month and the new year start with Saturn barely detectable in the evening sky. The ringed planet sets not long after the sun does. But Venus is shining bright in Capricornus a bit higher. A nearly first quarter moon is on the meridian as the sun goes down on the 1st. Taurus, Orion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-59"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}