The Night Sky January 2024
Believe it or not, despite it being midwinter on January 3rd ,we will be at Earth’s closest point to our Sun. In fact - 3 million miles closer! You would also imagine that being so much closer, the Sun would appear bigger. It does slightly, but mainly due to the optical illusion that makes it look so when it is close to the horizon. It seems to make no sense, but the Earth’s tilt of about 23 degrees means the part of the globe we live on is tilted away from the Sun when we are at the closest point.
Jupiter is unmistakable at the moment, brighter than any stars and glows with a steady light. Just in case you manage to spot it through the clouds with binoculars, you will be able to spot its 4 moons lined up as bright spots of light. I was stopped in the village recently by one of our lovely residents who said she may have seen the moons of Jupiter through her binoculars. This is perfectly possible.
I’ve included a diagram of the position of Jupiter’s 4 main moons for each day of the month plus a few days afterwards. Just find the date and look across to see where the coloured curves meet your date. (The vertical bar is Jupiter.)
Eg On the 22nd Jan (but before 23rd) , look across the line you will see that all of the coloured lines are to the right of the central bar. In other words the 4 main moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) will be lined up on one side of Jupiter.
Get a pair of binoculars out and see if you can spot them this month.
Your night sky view this month, January 2024.
Looking North- Embsay 11th January 10pm
Just looking low and to the North East you may spot the Quadrantids meteor shower
start their journey through our atmosphere (3rd&4th January). These are very bright streaks shooting across the sky and are mainly just dust particles from an extinct comet that crossed our orbit a long time ago. The speeds of these particles are estimated to be 25 miles per second. The energy contained in them makes them glow and some burn up in the atmosphere.
Looking NW half way up in the sky is the very faint Elephant Trunk Nebula captured in early December in Embsay, so called because of the shape that can be seen at the bottom centre of the image.
Photo: Milan Davidovic, Embsay. (December 2023)
Looking South- Embsay 11th January 10pm
Looking South, half way up in the night sky, is the very dominant Orion. There are so many interesting stories and objects about this part of the sky. Just to the left of Orion is a huge object called the Rosette Nebula. Its light takes 5000 years to reach us and it is a vast 130 light years across (780 trillion miles across!) It is believed that the centre of this object is a star-forming nursery.
Photo: Milan Davidovic, Embsay 2020
New Moon 11th January
Full Moon 25th January
Hope we have a few more clear nights this month!
Clear Skies,
Milan Davidovic
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