Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday January 3rd to Sunday January 9th, 2022.
The moon was new on Sunday January 2nd and will reach first quarter on Sunday January 9th so we’ll have a waxing crescent in our early evening skies all week.
Venus is in inferior conjunction with the sun on Saturday evening and will pass between the Earth and the Sun from our perspective. After conjunction, Venus will start to emerge into our morning skies over the next few weeks.
Mercury will reach its greatest elongation on Friday the 7th and will set at 7:15 p.m. that evening, about an hour and a half after the sun.
Saturn is sinking towards the sun and its next conjunction, so time is running out to see the ringed planet. Saturn is setting at 7:15 p.m. at midweek. Look for Saturn to the right of the thin crescent moon on Tuesday evening.
Jupiter is up in the southwest and is setting a couple of hours after Saturn, so we’ll have a bit more time to observe it in the early evenings this month. Jupiter will be to the upper right of the crescent moon on Wednesday evening.
Mars is up in the morning, rising at 5:25 a.m., about two hours before the sun.
The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on the night of Monday the 3rd and this year the shower won’t have interference from moon light since the peak is just a day after the new moon. The Quadrantids can have a high hourly rate, but the meteors are fainter than other well-known showers and the peak is often a narrow window of just a few hours. The parent body of this shower still has not been positively identified but has been hypothesized to be the rocky body 2003 EH1.
The Earth is at perihelion – its closest point to the Sun in its orbit – early on January 4th, when we will be at a distance of 147.1 million kilometers from our star. Compare that to the distance of 152.1 million kilometers at aphelion in July.
Public viewing nights on UT campus telescopes are currently on hold for the break between semesters. We are hoping to resume spring semester viewing as usual in late January 2022, but please check back in the next few weeks for more details.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
