Page 1 Skylights Newsle%er of the Astronomical Society of Northern New England What’s Up In January year at the solstice. As if to enhance their last few days of be- By Bernie Reim ing close together in our sky, Mercury will join the pair for only a week starting on the th he month of January is named for 9 . It will start out below Saturn and then work its way up past Jupiter. You may need the Roman god Janus, who is the binoculars and a perfect western horizon to protector of gates and doorways. Janus is depicted with two faces, see all 3 of them well because they are get- ting very low. Try to see how long you can JAN 2021 one facing forwards to the future and the other one facing backwards spot these three as they sink deeper and deep- into the past. This month will not have nearly er into our evening twilight. Mercury is two as many exciting, dramatic, and rare events and half times fainter than Jupiter, but Saturn packed into it as the last month of 2020 had, but will be the hardest one to see since it will be the faintest and lowest of the three. We will there will still be at least the usual number of rd interesting events that will be worth braving the lose Saturn by the 23 and Jupiter a few days Member of NASA’s cold to go out and see. later. As if they are now exhausted from their Night Sky Network great show last month, they will both go into The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and hibernation until late February when they Saturn is winding down now and both planets will return as morning planets. will dive below our western horizon towards the end of this month, but they will still be much Mercury is a very interesting planet that closer together than usual. Mercury will make a still harbors many mysteries, as all of our brief appearance near Jupiter and Saturn during planets do. Europe and Japan launched a the middle of this month. Mars is getting too joint mission named BepiColombo in honor small to see much detail in an average telescope of the Italian mathematician and engineer after the middle of this month, so catch it earlier who first calculated its notoriously difficult for the last good telescopic views in 2 more path to orbit to our first planet. It was Astronomical League years until it gets close to us again. Earth will be launched just over 2 years ago and it won’t get there for 5 more years. at perihelion or its closest point to the sun for the year on January 2 nd . The Quadrantid Meteor “Continued on page 2 ” ASNNE MISSION shower will peak on the night of the third into the morning of the fourth. The waning crescent Inside This Issue ASNNE is an moon and Venus will have another close incorporated, non- conjunction on the 11 th . Club Contact List pg 2 profit, scienfic and educaonal Jupiter and Saturn have now traded places in Moon Data pg 3,4,5 organizaon with three their great celestial dance around the sun. They Observer’s Challenge start the month just one degree apart and then primary goals that distance slowly increases. Last month they Astro Short —Peter Gillette pg 6,7 1) To have fun sharing were both visible in the same field of view of a our knowledge and telescope, along with 9 of their combined 161 The Great Christmas Conjunction pg 8 moons. Notice that Jupiter is still 10 times interest with others. brighter than Saturn, but that it is to the upper Meteor Showers in 2021 pg 9 left of Saturn now instead of the lower right 2) To provide basic Club Merchandise for Sale where it was all last summer and fall. It finally educaon in astronomy caught up with the ringed planet right on the pg 10,11 and related sciences to winter solstice. They are both still in direct or Check Your Skies Quality With all who are interested. Orion! eastward motion against the fixed background of stars, but they have drifted into Capricorn Astroimaging with a Point & Shoot pg 12,13 3) To promote the now, the neighboring constellation to the east of science of Astronomy. Sagittarius which they inhabited for the last Business Meeting Notes pg 14 year. Since Jupiter’s orbit lasts 12 years and Saturn’s is nearly 30 years, they do end up fairly Club Meeting & Star Party Dates pg 15 close every 20 years, but not nearly as close as Directions ASNNE Locations they just were. The next good conjunction will Become a Member pg 16 be in 80 years, so I hope you caught the one last Page 2 Skylights Club Contacts What’s Up “Continued from page 1 ” Mercury is quite close to us, averaging about the There will be another good conjunction of Ve- Officers: same distance as the sun, 93 million miles, but it nus and the slender crescent moon on the Monday takes as long to get there as it takes us to get all the morning the 11 th an hour before sunrise. The moon President: way to Saturn, nearly one billion miles away. The always has to be a thin crescent when it is near Ve- Ron Burk reason for this that it is very complicated to get in- nus because it also has to be near the sun at that [email protected] to orbit around Mercury due to its proximity to the time. That makes for a more dramatic view of the sun with its powerful gravitational field. We have pair as the earthshine on the moon is only visible Vice President: to spiral around Mercury for 4 years before we can during its crescent phases. The moon will not oc- get into a stable orbit to take our measurements. It cult Venus this time anywhere on Earth like it did Bernie Reim will make several flybys of Venus and Earth first last month. Through a telescope you would see [email protected] to slow it down. When we sent the Voyager mis- that Venus is nearly full now since it is approach- sions to the outer planets we used the same sling- ing its superior conjunction with the sun when it Secretary: shot maneuvers around Jupiter and some other will be farthest from Earth. Carl Gurtman planets to speed them up as they transfer energy from the planet to the spacecraft. Jan.1. On this day in 1801 G. Piazzi discovered the [email protected] first and largest asteroid, Ceres, which was consid- The European Space Agency contributed the ered a planet for a while. Ceres is 600 miles in di- Treasurer: Mercury Planet Orbiter and the Japanese Aero- ameter and may have a liquid ocean underneath its Ian Durham space Exploration Agency made the Mercury icy surface. We have a spacecraft named Dawn [email protected] Magnetosphere Orbiter. They will separate when which is orbiting Ceres right now. It first orbited they get there into two different orbits and they Vesta until 2 years ago. Vesta has interesting geol- Board of Directors: should last for over a year of making careful meas- ogy and a differentiated core and mantle and crust urements and learning many new things about this along with a lot of hydrated material on its surface. enigmatic little planet whose core is 85% of the Many of our meteorites found on earth come from Gary Asperschlager [email protected] entire planet. Vesta. Then Ceres is more icy like the outer moons even though they are both in the main asteroid belt We have only sent two other missions to Mer- Larry Burkett between Mars and Jupiter. These are both proto cury. The first one was Mariner 10 and it only or- planets that were on their way to becoming planets [email protected] bited Mercury 3 times to get some close -up imag- until they were disrupted by Jupiter. es. The only one to really study our first planet Keith Brown was Messenger, which was orbiting for 4 years Jan.2 Earth is at perihelion to the sun today at 91.4 [email protected] from 2011 to April 30 of 2015, when it purposely million miles away. Its average distance is 93 mil- crashed into the planet after running out of fuel lion miles and its aphelion distance on July 4 is Star Party and made a crater 50 feet wide as it slammed into 94.5 million miles. the planet at over 8000 miles per hour. We can’t Co -ordinator: Jan.3. The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks to- see this man -made crater from Earth, but Bepi- night into the next morning. Carl Gurtman Colombo should be able to see it. Jan. 6. Last quarter moon is at 4:38 a.m. [email protected] The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak on Sunday evening the 3 rd . Unfortunately the moon Jan.7. On this day in 1610 Galileo discovered 3 Skylights Editor: will be a waning gibbous that will rise around 9 moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, and Callisto. He pm to spoil the show just 5 hours after sunset. This would discover Ganymede, whose 3200 mile di- Paul Kursewicz shower can produce over 100 meteors per hour, ameter makes it the largest of all our 210 current [email protected] but it is hard to actually see that many because its moons in our solar system, 6 days later.