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Home , Argo Navis, Eta Carinae

What’s up in Space? January 2018—Sailing the southern skies

The chart is orientated for Dec 1 at 1am NZDT Dec 15 at midnight NZDT Jan 1 at 11pm NZDT Jan 15 at 10pm NZDT

We have no bright planets in our evening skies this month, telescope you will see a number of individual , some Mars rises just before 2.30 am at the beginning of the showing hints of red and orange. month, with golden Jupiter joining it a few minutes later. A little further south, and set apart from the is Jupiter will rise gradually earlier each day, tracking with the bright /Atu tahi, the second brightest star the background stars, whilst Mars moves more slowly. By in our night-time sky. Canopus is the brightest star in the month’s end, Jupiter will be rising before 1 am, and Mars of , the keel, which along with , the will sit below and to the right, rising around half an hour sails, and , the poop deck, once formed part of the later. southern constellation of Navis, the great ship. We do, however, have some of our brightest stars. , There are many interesting nebulae and star clusters in the hunter, dominates our eastern skies after dark. this part of the sky, but perhaps the most famous is the Eta Following his belt to the right you come to , or Carinae , a huge cloud of glowing gas around 7500 Takurua, the brightest star in our night-time sky, in the light away. It is one of the largest nebulae of its type constellation of , Orion’s large hunting dog. in our skies (4 times the size of the Orion Nebula), and the Just above and to the right of Sirius is M41, an open brightest central parts can be picked out with the naked cluster of stars covering an area around the size of the full eye. With binoculars you should be able to see a golden moon. It is just visible as a blurry smudge to the star in the nebula; this is , a massive, unstable from a clear, dark location. Through binoculars or a small star on the verge of blowing itself apart.