January’s skies offer some of the most spectacular stellar cartography of all, with brilliant Orion, Taurus, Canis Major, and others sparkling through much of the night. Fomalhaut, the lonely Autumn Star, disappears in the southwest near month’s end.
The full Moon of January is known as the Old Moon, Moon After Yule, or Wolf Moon.
Perigee January 1, 29
Apogee January 13
Moon phases are Central Time.
The Orionid meteor shower will be at its best this weekend. The Moon makes a pest of itself, though, especially on Sunday night, when the shower should reach its peak. It leaves a little better viewing window tonight and tomorrow night, though.
The planet Mars stands to the right of the Moon at nightfall. Although it has lost a good bit of its luster since the summer, it remains one of the half-dozen brightest objects in the night sky, shining like a brilliant orange star.
Look for the planet Mars to the left of the Moon as darkness falls this evening. It looks like a bright orange star. Mars will stand even closer to the Moon as they set, after midnight.
A space rock the size of a building will buzz near Earth tomorrow, although there is no risk of it hitting us. Asteroid 2014 US7 will miss Earth by about 750,000 miles, which is three times the distance to the Moon.
Auriga, the charioteer, climbs into view in the northeast by about 9 p.m. It’s marked by yellow-orange Capella, one of the brightest stars in northern skies.
Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system, huddles quite close to the Moon tonight. The giant planet looks like a bright golden star to the left of the Moon.
Deneb Algedi, the tail of the sea-goat, is in the southern sky at nightfall, in the constellation Capricornus. Deneb Algedi is a good bit bigger and hotter than the Sun, and much farther along in life.
The Andromeda galaxy is in the east-northeast at nightfall. Under dark skies, it looks like a smudge of light. It’s a family of hundreds of billions of stars. It is 2.5 million light-years away — the farthest object easily visible to the eye alone.
Brilliant Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, lines up below the Moon in early evening. It looks like a brilliant star, with a bit of a creamy color.
A cluster from another galaxy scoots across the south on October evenings. Messier 30, in the lower left corner of Capricornus, is a family of hundreds of thousands of stars. They probably came from another galaxy, which was consumed by the Milky Way.
