{"id":761,"date":"2022-01-01T00:58:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T00:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=761"},"modified":"2022-01-01T00:58:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T00:58:23","slug":"january-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/january-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"January 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We\nstart a new year with four naked eye planets in the evening sky. One\nis already on the way out of the party and it won’t be long before\nthe rest follow it to the morning sky. You may be able to see Venus\nvery close to the horizon in the southwest as darkness begins on the\njust the first few evenings of the month. Mercury is above it. Then\nyou see Saturn in Capricornus. Continuing up the sky, you find\nJupiter settling into Aquarius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On\nthe 3rd<\/sup>,\nthe same day that Earth is at perihelion, a thin sliver of a young\nmoon is near Mercury. Each night, the crescent is thicker and passes\nSaturn on the 4th<\/sup>\nand Jupiter on the 5th<\/sup>.\nMercury is at greatest elongation on the 7th<\/sup>.\nIt’s 19.2\u00b0 east of the sun. On the 8th<\/sup>,\nVenus goes through inferior conjunction. The moon is at first quarter\nthe next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About\na third of the way into the month, Mercury doesn’t seem quite so\neager to meet up with Saturn. They get as close as 3.4\u00b0 when Mercury\nturns around and starts a sunward trek. Mercury’s at perihelion on\nthe 15th<\/sup>.\nThe moon is nearly full on the 16th<\/sup>\nwhen it’s at northern lunistice 26.4\u00b0 from the equator. Full moon is\non the 17th<\/sup>.\nAbout two-thirds of the way through January, Saturn becomes hard to\nsee as it’s setting not long after sunset. Of course, even though\nJupiter is higher, you know it is also heading toward the morning\nsky. You have a few more weeks to enjoy it as an evening object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Venus\nwill be visible in the morning sky by the middle of the month if you\nhave a clear horizon and vision astute enough to pick it out of the\nmorning light. It and Mars are heading toward each other. On the\n23rd<\/sup>,\nMercury has disappeared from the morning sky and goes through\ninferior conjunction. On the same day, Venus is at perihelion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmoon is at last quarter on the 23rd<\/sup>.\nIt’s on the way to southern lunistice at 26.4\u00b0 from the equator on\nthe 29th<\/sup>.\nBy this time, Venus is much easier to spot in the morning sky. It and\nMars pass each other around the 27th<\/sup>.\nA waning crescent moon is nearing them and passes by them on the Mars\nside on the 29th<\/sup>.\nMars is right of Venus and ends the month atop the Sagittarius\nteapot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\nasteroid Iris is at opposition on the 13th<\/sup>,\n1.1 astronomical units from us and just east of Gemini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nQuadrantid meteor shower peaks on the 3rd<\/sup>.\nAsia and Europe will get the best of it. It’s daytime during the peak\nin the Americas. And it’s a far northern shower, so Africa,\nAustralia, and South America don’t get much of it at all. It will be\npossible to see a Quadrantid meteor in the southern hemisphere if it\nmakes a long trail on the way through the atmosphere. But you can’t\ntell with any certainty that it’s coming from the shower’s radiant\npoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ngood callenge this month would be seeing a thin crescent moon next to\nVenus twice. They’ll be 7.5\u00b0 apart on the 3rd<\/sup>\nwhen the planet’s still in the evening sky. You may need binoculars\nor a telescope to see both so soon after sunset. Definitely make sure\nthe sun is down before you point any scope or binoculars in that\ndirection. You won’t have nearly as much trouble finding the planet\nin the morning on the 30th<\/sup>\nwith the moon and Mars nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We start a new year with four naked eye planets in the evening sky. One is already on the way out of the party and it won’t be long before the rest follow it to the morning sky. You may be able to see Venus very close to the horizon in the southwest as darkness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-61"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","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=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":767,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}