Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday January 10th to Sunday January 16th.
The moon was at first quarter on Sunday January 9th and will reach full on Monday the 17th, so we’ll have a waxing gibbous moon all week.
Mercury is now sinking back towards the sun after greatest elongation last week and is setting at 7:10 p.m. at midweek. Saturn is to the upper left of Mercury and is setting at 7:20 p.m. at midweek. Jupiter is still shining brightly in the southwest after sunset and is setting just before 9:00 p.m. this week.
In the morning skies, Mars is rising at 5:20 a.m. and Venus is rapidly emerging from conjunction and is up an hour before sunrise by the end of the weekend.
In space anniversaries this week, Wednesday January 12th marks 25 years since the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on its 18th flight and its 5th mission to the Russian Mir space station. This mission was also the second flight that involved an exchange of US astronauts with Jerry Linenger replacing John Blaha onboard the station. The overall mission lasted 10 days, with five of those days docked at Mir.
And in space news from the past few weeks, the James Webb Space Telescope launched on December 25th from French Guiana and is currently on its way to the L2 Lagrange point about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. During the cruise phase, controllers on Earth successfully deployed the 5-layer heat shield and unfolded the mirror array. After arrival at L2 in a couple of weeks, the telescope will be cooled down for several months while the mirrors are aligned, and instruments are calibrated before the first images are taken. You can follow the mission online at jwst.nasa.gov.
Public viewing nights on UT campus telescopes are currently on hold for the break between semesters. Due to the COVID surge, the start of spring semester viewing will be delayed as we continue to monitor the situation, so please continue to check our website outreach.as.utexas.edu for details about when we will be able to resume the telescope public nights.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
