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January 2013 Night Sky Happy New Year! The stars are putting on a good show, and with long, dark nights it’s an excellent time to go out stargazing. It can be very cold though, so wrap up warm and take a hot drink if you plan on being out a while. The At-Bristol astronomers recommend warm cocoa in an insulating flask. www.at-bristol.org.uk Constellation of the month: Canis Major There are several stories surrounding Canis Major, with the most popular saying that the constellation represents Orion’s hunting dog. The well-known American poet Robert Frost wrote this poem, inspired by Canis Major: The great Overdog, That heavenly beast, With a star in one eye, Gives a leap in the east. He dances upright, All the way to the west, And never once drops, On his forefeet to rest. I'm a poor underdog, But to-night I will bark, With the great Overdog, That romps through the dark. Image credit: Stellarium Monoceros Orion Lepus Sirius M41 Puppis Finding Canis Major The most impressive part of Canis Major is the star Sirius, the brightest in the night sky. It makes Canis Major quite easy to find. Look due south at around 11pm and so long as you have a clear horizon you’ll have a good view. Another way to find Canis Major is to first track down Orion’s Belt, then draw a line downwards from those three stars. They point straight to scorching Sirius. Look out for... Columba Sirius is the unmissable object here. It’s so bright that sometimes on blustery nights it twinkles a lot and is mistaken for a UFO! If you have binoculars or a small telescope you’ll be able to spot a cluster of stars called M41 below Sirius. In total M41 contains about 100 stars. Why not have a go and see how many you can count? News flash: NASA plan new Mars rover The exploration of Mars has received a boost with news that a new robot will be sent to the Red Planet in 2020 and should arrive a year later. To save costs it will be based on the Curiosity rover that safely landed on the surface on 6 August 2012. The robot will use the same landing mechanism as Curiosity. Image: NASA. The planets in January Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn appears too close to the Sun to be visible this month. unfortunately is not well-placed to observe. is very low in the south-west around sunset. is in the south / south-west, and is unmistakably bright. may be seen low in the south before dawn. Theme of the month: Twinkling stars . Have you ever heard that stars twinkle in the sky but planets don’t? Well, this is mostly true. Objects in the sky seem to twinkle because we’re seeing them though the Earth’s atmosphere. All those layers of air are moving, which distorts their light and gives the twinkling effect. The distant stars are very large but are so far away that to us they look like pin-pricks of light. The planets in our Solar System are smaller but much, much, MUCH closer! This means that we actually see them as tiny discs and not dots of light like the stars, (although we can’t really see this using just our eyes). The atmosphere still distorts their light, but as they appear slightly larger this masks the effect. Sometimes even planets can twinkle though. If they’re close to the horizon then we see them through even more atmosphere, and their discs of light may not be enough to disguise the twinkling! www.at-bristol.org.uk Moon calendar 05 January Last Quarter 11 January New Moon 18 January First Quarter 27 January Full Moon Through a telescope the disc of Jupiter can be seen, but can you see the star? It still looks like a dot because it’s so far away. Image credit: Stellarium. Would you like to know more? Zooniverse is a collection of projects that lets you help professional astronomers and maybe make a real Image credit: Shuttle Crew andtoNASA. discovery. VisitSTS-119 www.zooniverse.org get started. Stellarium is a planetarium program for your computer, showing a realistic 3D sky just as you would see if looking with your eyes or a telescope. Best of all, it’s completely free. Download it at www.stellarium.org Heavens Above is a website for you to create customised sky maps and see when satellites like the International Space Station and Iridium flares will be visible. Try it at www.heavens-above.com Smartphone apps for astronomy are excellent ways to help you navigate the night sky. Google Sky Map for Android and Planets for iPhones are free apps to start you off in the right direction. The Bristol Astronomical Society is a group of local stargazers who are always keen to help beginners. Find out more via www.bristolastrosoc.org.uk Do you have an astronomy question for the At-Bristol Planetarium team? E-mail [email protected] and our devoted astronomers will be happy to help!