The Night Sky This Month – January 2025
(Looking for last month’s ‘Night Sky’? Find it at this link…)
Happy New Year! The year 2025 arrives with a promising but brief meteor shower, and four bright planets putting on a show in the evening sky. Jupiter still shines impressively bright in Taurus at magnitude -2.6 and presents a nice fat disk for telescopic observation. Venus is far brighter in the southwest and continues to brighten during the month. And at mid-month comes the Mars show as the planet grows biggest and brightest as it reaches opposition. Observers in North America see Mars occulted by the full Moon – a truly spectacular event. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month!
2-3 January 2025. The brief but sometimes intense Quadrantid meteor shower peaks. The Quadrantids average about 25-40 meteors in dark sky. The predicted time of the peak of the shower is 15h Universal Time on January 3, a time which favors observers in the western Americas. But look anytime on the early morning of the 3rd, especially in the morning when the radiant is higher in the sky. The Quadrantids take their name from the defunct northern constellation Quadrans Muralis. They can appear anywhere in the sky, but the radiant lies just north of the bright star Arcturus in the northeastern sky in the pre-dawn hours or just over the north-northwestern horizon after evening twilight. This year, a waxing crescent Moon mostly stays out of the way. The Quadrantids strongly favor northern-hemisphere observers.
3 Jan. Venus perches itself about three degrees north of a thickening crescent Moon in the southwest. The planet puts on an excellent show in the first months of 2025. Tonight, it shines at a brilliant magnitude -4.4 and spans about 23”. A telescope shows its disk a little more than half illuminated. As the month progresses, the planet’s disk becomes crescent-shaped but larger in apparent diameter, and grows in brightness to an impressive magnitude -4.6.
4 Jan. At 13:00 UT, the Earth reaches perihelion, the point in its orbit where it lies closest to the Sun at a distance of 147,103,686 km. That’s about 3% closer than at aphelion in early July.
4 Jan. Tonight the Moon lies about 3o north of Saturn in the southwestern sky after sunset. Saturn is working its way west each day on its way to conjunction with the Sun on March 12. Its rings appear nearly edge on now and will seem to disappear in late March from our point of view before reappearing slowly through the rest of the year.
6 Jan. First Quarter Moon, 23:56 UT
9 Jan. The waxing gibbous Moon passes through the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. Grab a pair of binoculars to see this glorious sight!
10 Jan. Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation at an angular distance of 47o from the Sun.
12 Jan. Mars makes its closest approach to Earth this cycle at a distance of 96,041,800 km. The planet shines a magnitude -1.4 with a ruddy orange hue and spans 14.6” in a telescope. It reaches opposition not now but in four days as a consequence of its asymmetric orbit.
13-14 Jan. The full Moon occults Mars for observers in all but the northwestern parts of North America. This will be a spectacular event since Mars is near its closest to Earth and well worth observing in a telescope, binoculars, or simply with your unaided eye! Detailed timing for many cities and towns at this link.
15-16 Jan. Mars reaches opposition for the first time in 26 months. The planet shines at magnitude -1.3 in the constellation Gemini and spans about 14.6”. That’s not as large as the past few oppositions, but it’s still impressive. The planet lies along the northern reaches of the ecliptic which favors northern observers who see it high in the sky at culmination, but southern-hemisphere observers see it also. All this month and next presents the best time (if a chilly one, for northern observers) to observe the planet in the evening hours. Read more about how to observe Mars here.
13 Jan. Full Moon, 22:27 UT (the full ‘Wolf Moon’)
18-20 Jan. Look again to Venus in the southwest to see it within about 2o of Saturn.
21 Jan. Last Quarter Moon, 20:31 UT
25 Jan. Antares grazes the waning crescent Moon in the southeast. Observers in southern Australia and all of New Zealand see an occultation of the star. Timing and more details at this link.
29 Jan. New Moon, 12:36 UT