Backyard astronomy for January

[Psk]

In the west about a half hour after sunset, you’ll see Venus, but just below Venus you'll see much fainter Mercury. They'll be less than 2 degrees apart for the first half of the month.

Of course as usual, Orion will be visible all winter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29 )... a welcome sight because you can even see all of it in the bright light-polluted city at night. With binoculars you can see the nebula as a fuzzy star, but to make it out as a nebula you'll need something much more powerful. The bright orange star in the constellation is Betelgeuse ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse ). It's red supergiant sun... one of the few supergiants observable with the naked eye. Burning away it's fuel at an alarming rate, it can blow up any second... or within the next million years. At 640 light years away, if it blew up today we wouldn't know about it for 640 years because that's how long it would take the light from it to get here. It's close enough that when it blows it will light up the whole sky, & you could easily see it in broad daylight.

There's a lot of controversy about any dangers from the x-rays & gamma ray it might cause. We're all doomed in less than 1/4 million years anyway as a star passes through our solar system's Ort cloud, causing all sort of asteroids & comets to rain down on us.

Mars is viewable as just as darkness falls throughout the month. It's really low in the southwestern twilight sky. Catch it right at nightfall because it sets real early in the evening throughout January.

Jupiter rises in the east around 8pm in early January and 6pm by the end of the month & remains in the night sky until dawn. It will be unmistakable, as it's brighter than any star in the sky. Only Venus will outshine it, but Venus will have set by the time Jupiter rises. As our orbit brings us close to Jupiter, it will be closest at February 6. A good time for best seeing it's largest moons even with simple binoculars, or the planet's details with a good telescope.

Saturn unfortunately rises just 3 hours before sunrise, so will only be visible for a few pre-dawn hours. The rings won't be visible with small binoculars unless you have good eyesight with a little eyestrain, you'll just barely make them out. The rings will just make it look oval rather than round. You'll need a good telescope to see them. It's largest moons may be just barely visible.

Below: Venus & Mercury, & Jupiter with it's largest moons through a large 10" diameter backyard telescope.