The Lunar Eclipses of Mars: Venus and Saturn at “Oppossibility” during January 1-3, and When will the Sun Set?
The sun will set in the first few hours after dark, and the planets will be able to be seen by the naked eye. You’ll have to use binoculars or telescopes to spot Neptune and Uranus.
Meanwhile, Mars is at “opposition” this month. That’s when a planet and the sun are directly opposite each other with Earth in between. This celestial event happens about every two years for the red planet.
Venus andSaturn have been drawing closer and closer over the course of January. The two planets will appear within just a couple of fingers’ distance apart from Earth’s viewpoint on Friday and Saturday, according to NASA. (Though in reality, there are hundreds of millions of miles between them.)
It is best to view the planets after 10:30 pm, when three of them are set. You can use a website like Time and Date to find exact times for each planet, but make sure you know the exact times for your location on Earth.
There will be an alignment visible for about a month. The planets’ positions will, however, shift over this time, so their positions on January 21 will not be the same as their positions in late February.
Alignments of five or more are very rare, and conjunctions of two planets are fairly common. There will be two more planetary alignments featuring five or more planets this year, but after that, the next alignment of five or more planets won’t happen until 2040.
The Night Before March 21: Early Sky Skywatching with a Backyard Telescope and a Moon-Sky Viewer at the Fermilab
It’s best to start skywatching earlier in the evening if you can, because Venus, Saturn, and Neptune will move lower toward the horizon before setting, and so will become more and more difficult to see as the evening goes on.
On January 21, Mars will be in the east, directly under the constellation Gemini. The planet Mars will be the greatest and most brilliant planet in the night sky because the Earth is between it and the sun.
Mars is easily visible to the naked eye. You can see the north polar ice cap and the largest canyon in the solar system with a backyard telescope.
A backyard telescope will allow you to see the giant planet in even greater detail. Jupiter has cloud bands that are over a mile wide, and the Red Spot is a huge anticyclone that is 1.3 times the width of Earth. The Red Spot is not always visible from Earth because of Jupiter, which is about 10 hours old and spends a lot of time looking away from Earth. You can use this calculator from Sky & Telescope to see when it might be visible from your location.
On the 21st, Uranus will be about 50 degrees to the west of Jupiter and slightly below it. Uranus will appear to be near the Pleiades, a bright star cluster that is visible to the naked eye.
You will need a pair of high-powered binoculars or a backyard telescope to see Uranus, as it’s too dim to easily see with the naked eye. Through such equipment, Uranus looks like a star with a pale blue tint. Although Uranus has rings, they are too faint to see, even with viewing equipment. However, if you have a powerful backyard telescope, you could potentially see its moons.
