Judging by the number of cloudy/foggy/rainy days we “enjoyed” in the final month of 2014, I must conclude that the part of the retail world that supplies us with telescopes, ccd cameras meant for astronomical imaging and telescope related accessories will be closing out 2014 well into the black. I know that every time I buy a new scope or eyepiece the clouds just roll in and block the stars for two and sometimes even three weeks. When the clouds finally roll out generally seems to depend when the moon will become big and bright. In reality, I am sure there is no real connection, but it does seem to happen fairly consistently. Perhaps it is simply that here in the heartland we just have a lot of cloudy skies and we notice them more when we have something new that we want to experiment with and are frustrated by the weather.

IF it happens that you received a telescope or new accessory as a gift this Christmas, I hope that January will prove to be clear and not too terribly cold/windy so you can enjoy your new window to a whole new world! Both Jupiter and Saturn will be visible this month, although not at the same time.

Let’s start with the King of the Planets, also known as Jupiter. Jupiter is interesting even in binoculars. In 7X35 or 10X50 binoculars you won’t see any of Jupiter’s beautiful colored cloud tops, of course, but you will be able to watch as Jupiter’s four brightest moons dance around the planet from night to night. A really fun binocular project especially for young budding astronomers is to go out every clear night for a month with not only the telescope or binoculars they got for Christmas, but also with a spiral notebook and a pencil. Once Jupiter is centered (and by the way, it really helps to have tripod adapter for your binoculars) simply make a very basic sketch of the planet (big dot or small circle in bino’s or a small telescope, respectively) and some dots showing where the moons are that night.

The moons move quite a bit from night to night and even over the course of a couple hours. You might be surprised to see one or two ‘missing’. If so, look closely, maybe you will be able to see it silhouetted against the front of the planet You will need a fair sized scope 8″ or bigger at fairly high magnification to spot it, but it is possible if the air is clear and steady enough. At other times you might see an inky black perfect dot on Jupiter’s surface which is actually the shadow cast by one of the moons. The plane that Jupiter’s moons orbit in is not always lined up with the plane in which we orbit the Sun so being able to see the shadows of Jupiter’s moons does not happen all that often. Every five years or so, though, everything does line up and this January we will see lots of these kinds of events because this is one of those times. On Saturday night, January 10th at about 9:11, the shadow of Jupiter’s moon Callisto will move onto the cloud tops. Io’s shadow is next, at 11:35 P.M. and then Europa’s shadow will join the party at about 1:27 A.M. Three shadows on the planet at once! And yep, this is another one of those “almost once in a lifetime” astronomical events that won’t happen again until 2032! Not like the next transit of Venus, which if you missed the last one back in 2012, won’t happen again until December 11th 2117, but still 17 years is a long time to wait for another triple shadow event on Jupiter!

I mentioned that Saturn would also be visible this January but not at the same time as Jupiter. Jupiter will rise around 8:00 P.M. at the beginning of January but Saturn does not rise until about 4:30 A.M. on the 1st. It will rise 2 hours earlier by the end of the month and be fairly high off the horizon by sunrise. If you can stand being outside just before sunrise in late January or early February, Saturn is always amazing even in small telescopes. If the thought of being outside an hour or two before sunrise in January sounds as daunting to you as it does to me, you might consider pointing your scope through a window. The views will not be the best, especially if you have double insulated windows, but at least you would still be warm. Just sayin’.

If you are not sure where to find Saturn and Jupiter with your shiny new or venerable old optics, Jupiter is in the constellation Leo about 8 degrees (four finger widths) above and slightly to the right of brilliant Regulus. The moon will be to the right of both of them on January 7 and 8. Saturn is in the constellation Libra in the southeast and on January 16 it will be less than 2 degrees from a waning crescent moon a little before 6 A.M. According to my planetarium software, they should both fit in a picture taken with my camera and one of my smaller telescopes. I will set a reminder on my smart phone. This could be something worth getting up early to take a picture of, providing all the telescope purchase induced clouds have rolled away by then! Clear Skies and I hope you had a Merry Christmas!