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February 2008 Night Sky at a Glance
See the planets, comets, asteroids, and other interested
solar system and deep sky objects that are up this month.
Planets Up and Visible This Month
Planets at a glance
Early Evening
Mars
Uranus
Saturn
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Midnight
Mars
Saturn |
Early morning
Venus
Jupiter
Mercury
Saturn
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Planets in Detail
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Mercury |
Mercury will be virtually invisible this month. It
sets with the Sun at the beginning of the month.
Toward the end of the month, it rises shortly before the
Sun, but will be too dim to be visible through the Sun's
glow before it rises. |
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Venus |
Venus rises early in the morning, roughly at 5:00 AM at
the beginning of the month. By the end of the
month, it will be rising alongside Mercury. Unlike
Mercury, however, Venus is extremely bright and may be
visible low on the horizon just before the Sun comes up.
Be careful using a telescope however because of the risk
of the Sun's rays entering your telescope. This
will result in serious eye damage or blindness. It
is best to view this planet with the naked towards the
end of the month. |
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Mars |
Mars is moving farther and farther away from the Earth
as the days go on. The best views of Mars are at
the beginning of the month. It will be high in the
sky all month, especially at the beginning of the night,
however, the disk is looking smaller by the day.
It will look 25% smaller by the end of the month and
will go from magnitude -.6 to .2 (still bright however). |
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Jupiter |
Jupiter begins the month by looking very close to Venus.
By month's end it will be rising shortly before 4:00 AM.
Jupiter wont be rising early in the evening until July,
so we won't see much detail at high magnification for
another few months. |
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Saturn |
Saturn dominates February's sky. It will be at
opposition on February 24th, so it will be the closest
to Earth that night. This will be the best view of
Saturn for quite some time, especially to get a good
look at the rings, since they will be edge on later this
year. If you like o image the planets, get your
scope and camera ready for Saturn this month. |
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Uranus |
Uranus will be setting about 1 1/2 hours after the Sun
at the beginning of the month. It will be lost in
twighlight by the end of the month. Even when
visible, it will only appear like a small green disk to
most observers. |
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Neptune |
Neptune will be invisible all month. By month's
end, it will rise about 30 minutes before the Sun, but
will be far too dim to see. It will be rising
early enough by April or May to be visible to those who
will be out at 4 AM. |
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Pluto |
Pluto will be rising at about 4:00 AM at the beginning
of the month at at about 2:30 AM by the end of the
month. Either way, it will not be high enough in
the sky to be visible. To view Pluto, you need
very dark skies, and a large scope. They say an 8"
will do it, but its tough in a telescope that small. |
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List of Visible Comets For This Month
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Click a
comet name below for a list of coordinates throughout the month.
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Comet 17P Holmes
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What started out as a
bright comet last month is getting dimmer and more diffuse.
This has been one the most exciting comets visible in the
Northern hemisphere in quite some time. It started out as
far too dim to view and brightened almost overnight to be
visible with the naked eye in October 2007. You won't be able to
see it much longer because it is expected to fade fast.
Check it out now! |
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Comet 8P Tuttle |
This comet will be invisible to those of us
in the Northern Hemisphere, but is still putting on a good show
in the Southern Hemisphere. It is getting dimmer by the
day and you will need a large scope and dark skies by the end of
the month. |
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Comet 46P Wirtanen |
Comet 46P Wirtanen is
going to be a great comet to view this month. The full
moon will plague views this comet during the middle months of
February, and is best viewed at the beginning and end of the
month. It will require dark skies and a telescope, or even
binoculars.
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Comet C/2007 T1 McNaught
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Comet C/2007 T1 McNaught is found in the
constellation Apus and is a dim comet at the moment. It
can only be viewed with rather large telescopes, maybe 14" and
larger. It only gets dimmer by months end. This will
be last month that we list this comet. |
Meteor Showers
| α-Centaurids (ACE) |
The a-Centaurids meteor shower is active the
whole month of February, but peaks on February 8th.
Unfortunately to those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is
only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a great
shower with fireballs often reported. |
This Month's Moon Phases
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February 2008 |
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Lunar Eclipse!
The best lunar eclipse in years is finally
here on February 20/21. It will be 3 hours and 26 minutes
long. It is expected to be be a very red eclipse.
Totality will last approximately 50 minutes. The eclipse
begins at 8:43 PM (EST) and ends at 12:09 AM. This eclipse
will be visible throughout the United States.
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