Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday January 31st to Sunday February 6th.
The moon is new late on Monday January 31st into early February 1st depending on your time zone and then we’ll have a waxing crescent moon in the early evening skies for the remainder of the week. This new moon also marks this year’s Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year of the Tiger.
Saturn is in conjunction with the Sun on Friday the 4th when it will pass behind the Sun from the Earth’s perspective. After conjunction, Saturn will slowly begin to emerge in the early morning skies as it gradually makes its way back to opposition in August.
Jupiter is now the only planet visible to the unaided eye in our early evening skies and it will still be visible low in the west-southwest for a few more weeks. Jupiter is setting at 7:55 p.m. at midweek and look for a nice pairing of Jupiter and the thin crescent moon on Wednesday night.
In the morning skies, Venus and Mars are both rising around 5 a.m. this week, followed by Mercury at 6:00 a.m.
Continuing with news of the James Webb Space Telescope, last week the telescope’s orbital insertion at the L2 Lagrange point was successful and at this point the telescope is now fully deployed. Over the next several months, the telescope will continue to cool down, the fine mirror alignment and calibration will begin, and the onboard instruments will be activated, tested, and calibrated. The first images, known as “first light” for telescopes, are expected this summer.
Due to the current 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 viewing nights.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
