Backyard Stargazer for Feb. 2018
By Francis Parnell
February is here and a somewhat rare event is about to happen. With the “Blue” Moon on the last day of January, and the next Full Moon on the 2nd day of March, February has no Full Moon. When this occurs it’s “unofficially” called a Black Moon.
The average time between two Full Moons is about 29.5 days, which means February can never have two Full Moons. When February has no Full Moon, then January and March must have two Full Moons. This pattern doesn’t happen often; it last occurred in 1999 and will happen again in 2037.
On the 1st, look east to observe the Moon, just past full, following Regulus, the brightest star in LEO, the Lion, by about 6-degrees as they rise in tandem. Regulus is 5 times the Sun’s diameter and 150 times as luminous.
For early risers, the Moon, near last quarter, is 6-degrees upper right of bright yellow Jupiter before dawn on the 7th. The next morning the Moon is 8-degrees to Jupiter’s left.
Just before dawn on the 8th, Mars, Antares (the brightest star in SCORPIUS), the waning crescent Moon and Jupiter, form a celestial arc in SCORPIUS, and LIBRA.
By early morning on the 11th, Mars has moved to 5-degrees above left of Antares. Because of its reddish hue, Antares means, “Rival of Mars”, and is a Red Super-giant 883 times the solar diameter and 17,000 times brighter than the Sun. Also on the 11th, a thin sliver of a crescent Moon is just 2-degrees above the ringed planet Saturn.
My late mother used to tell me that when she was a child she loved going out at night and looking at the sky with its thousands of stars and the Milky Way. For all of us that are old enough to recall how the star filled sky around here used to look, here’s a little poem my mother loved. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder where you are; looking up is no solution, the sky’s so full of light pollution.”
And light pollution is rapidly worsening. With the rush to install Blue-rich white light LED’s, sky brightness (sky glow) increases by a factor of 3, and cities/towns will be bathed in Perpetual Daylight 24/7/365. Night will soon cease to exist; become extinct. Is that what we want? I hope not. Because that’s not only bad for us, but all of the nocturnal creatures that rely on darkness to live.
Stay warm and “Keep looking up!”Francis Parnell of Darlington has been an amateur astronomer for over 46 years, and was on the staff and helped out at the Francis Marion University Observatory from 1982 until 2006 by showing visitors “what’s out there.” With the help of a friend, Mr. Ernest Lowry, he built his own telescope in 1986. And, because of light pollution, for the last 31 years he has been advocating for the advantages of using fully-shielded lighting at night.
