January 31, 2008
Astronomy Notes for February 2008
This is another month of good observing like January. In particular, the first week of the month will have some very pretty dawn skies. A good lunar eclipse happens 20 Feb. Read on:
Comets
See last month's notes.
NEOs
Well, TU 24 passed us by at a distance and aspect that was little different than predicted by simple Keplerian two-body calculus. (In other words, local gravity of the moon or earth didn't affect it's solar orbit enough to pull it closer to us.) There are 3 potentially hazardous asteroids passing by in February, but none is closer than about 15 times the distance to the moon. The biggest, 4450 PAN, is about 1.6 kilometers (about a mile) across and should pass by at 16 times the distance to the moon.
Meteors
This is always a weak month for meteors, with the lowest rate for random meteors and only one modest shower, the Alpha Centaurids. This shower should peak on 8 Feb, radiating from the Centauris constellation below the horizon and zipping south to north. The max rate ranges from less than 5 to more than 25 per hour, but this shower is expected to be closer to the former in 2008.
Sun and Moon
After many months of extraordinary quiet, there is a single sun spot crossing the face of the Sun.
Full moon and the last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs on 20 Feb. The eclipse will begin as the moon enters the faint outer portion-the penumbra-at 5:35pm in Arizona. It will enter the dark umbral center at 6:43pm Arizona time. Total eclipse will occur from 8:01 until 8:52pm. The last of the eclipse will end at 11:17pm.
Planets
Venus and Jupiter are smack dab next to each other in the pre-dawn morning at the beginning of the month. Mercury zooms past the Sun and climbs toward Venus, and the two planets actually pass each other at the end of the month, appearing about one hour before dawn. Mars is still high in the sky, but shrinking and dimming through the month.
Saturn is in the eastern sky at nightfall all month, best viewed later in the evening, when it has had a chance to rise higher. The globe and rings are a good target for small telescopes.
On 3 February, the tight pair Venus and Jupiter will form one base angle of an equilateral triangle, and the new moon will form the other base angle. Transneptunian asteroid Pluto will form the top angle. This will only give you a place to look. Pluto will be 1000 times more faint than the faintest visible objects.
The data and information above is taken mostly from Astronomical Calendar edited by Guy Otwell. Fred Schaaf and Steve Albers produced many of the observations. Alastair McBeath provided the meteor data. Alan Hale provided the comet data. Clifford Cunningham contributed to the NEO data. Some comes from the Space Weather.com website, and some comes from personal logs and observations.