What's Up?

This page shows a brief summary of what interesting things we can see in the sky this month.  

A more detailed version of 'What's Up' this month is available as a downloadable Word document right at the bottom of this page. 

February is a quiet month but there is a planetary conjunction on the 15th February.

The Sun

The sun is now approaching sunspot maximum, whereby spots can be been seen regularly.   

The Moon

The phases of the Moon are as follows:

• First Quarter -27th February
• Full Moon - 5th February
• Last Quarter - 13th February
• New Moon - 20th February

Darkest nights for observing will be from the 16th to the 24th of February.

 Mercury was recently at Solar Conjunction so is not available currently. 

Venus is a bright object (mag -3.9) in the sunset, it gets higher at the end of the month.

Mars is visible in Taurus. It fades from magnitude -0.3 to magnitude +0.4.

Jupiter is magnitude -0.2 in Pisces and getting lower each night .

Saturn is moving closer to the sunset and becoming more difficult to see.

Uranus is an evening object, the highest of the planets so best for observing.

Neptune is a difficult evening object conjoining with Venus on the 15th after 6:00 pm.

Comets

Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF should become bright enough to see with the naked eye early this month.

Meteors

No showers this month but sporadics are always possible.

Deep Sky

With Binoculars:

• M42 the Great Orion Nebula is the brightest nebula in the sky, piece of cake! 
• Don’t forget the Hyades and Pleaides in Taurus, both are naked-eye open clusters.

With a Telescope:

• Starting in the West before they set, look for:
• M77 & M74 both Spiral Galaxies, and M39 an open cluster, M33 the Triangulum Galaxy and M31 the Andromeda galaxy with M32 and M110 nearby.
• Looking south expect to see M93, M79, M41, M46, M47, M50 and of course M42. In the North you will find M63 the Sunflower Galaxy and M101 the pinwheel galaxy.
• Finally in the East the following will be rising, M48, M67 and M106, M44 Praesope (or the Beehive) is of course a naked eye object from a dark site.
• Later on M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy and M64 the Black Eye galaxy will rise.

Television

The Sky at night - there are no upcoming programmes till April. But, here are all the past episodes that are available to watch, in case you missed any: BBC4 The Sky At Night

Satellites

The ISS is an evening object till the 4th then a morning object after the 16th of February.

Happy Viewing!