What’s Up January 2012
Quadrantid meteor shower 2011. Image credit/copyright to Jeff Berkes, all rights reserved.
The big news this month is tonight: head out in the wee hours to see the Quadrantids… for a limited time only!
The 2012 Quadrantids, a little-known meteor shower named after an extinct constellation, will present an excellent chance for hardy souls to start the year off with some late-night meteor watching.
Peaking in the wee morning hours of Jan. 4, the Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3 a.m. local time, leaving about two hours of excellent meteor observing before dawn. It’s a good thing, too, because unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours — it’s the morning of Jan. 4, or nothing.
— NASA
The month starts off with a bang, celestially speaking, as the annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on the morning of January 4th. This year’s edition favors North America, but to see these “shooting stars” you’ll need to be up well past midnight — or get up a couple of hours before dawn.
The early evening sky is anchored by dazzling Venus low in the west and very bright Jupiter high in the southeast. These are the two brightest planets, and it’s a visual treat to have them both in the sky at once.
Spend some quality time with Cassiopeia, queen of the northern sky. Nearly overhead right now, this constellation looks more like a squashed “M” than a feminine figure. But its five bright stars are still easily recognized.
— Sky and Telescope
The next Full Moon is on the 9th, and the next New Moon is on the 23rd.
The International Space Station and various satellites can be tracked and viewed at Heavens-Above.com (link is set for Mt. Shasta’s location and elevation.)
For a full list of sky happenings this month, as well as a handy printable map, download The Evening Sky Map. (Translations to other languages are not currently supported, but they hope to have them back sometime in 2012.)
Hi! I’m Danielle Signor, MSCoC’s webmaster. I witnessed two out of three of the last space shuttle launches in the program: Discovery in February 2011, as part of the STS-133 NASA Tweetup event; and Atlantis in July 2011 (STS-135). Find me on Twitter at @silverrockets, and check out my blog at Silver-Rockets.com.
