“And now we welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy New Year! It’s chilly in my part of the world, about -28oC as the Sun sets on New Years’s Eve, and far too cold for astronomical electronics. But I’m still heading outside for a short visual observing session with a grab-and-go telescope: the winter stars are too beautiful to pass up. This month begins with four bright planets in the evening sky, and indeed the entire year is a promising time for planet watchers as all the major planets line up in the morning sky through June and eventually move to the evening sky. This month also holds promise for the Quadrantid meteor shower. And brave and skilled observers might try to see Venus, at its closest approach in more than a century, pass just five degrees from the Sun. Here’s what to see in the night sky this month!
1 January 2022. Begin the year with a look at four bright planets in the southwestern sky after sunset. Venus shines brightest but lies low over the horizon with Mercury not much higher to the east. Saturn and Jupiter lie considerably higher to the northeast with a spacing of about 40 degrees between Jupiter and Venus. Venus plunges quickly each day towards the Sun on its way to inferior conjunction next week. It quickly reappears in the morning sky later in the month. Mercury rises a little higher and reaches greatest eastern elongation on the 7th. Jupiter and Saturn slowly move towards the Sun as January wears on.
2 Jan. New Moon, 18:33 UT
3-4 Jan. The brief but sometimes intense Quadrantid meteor shower peaks under ideal conditions with the Moon barely past new. The Quadrantids averages about 25-40 meteors in dark sky but it can feature more than 100 meteors per hour in a good year. The predicted time of the peak of the shower is 21h Universal Time on January 3. But look anytime on the night of the 3rd and into the early morning of the 4th, 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. The shower strongly favors northern-hemisphere observers.
4 Jan. At 7h Universal Time, Earth lies at perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun in its orbit, at a distance of 147,105,052 km.
4-5 Jan. Look for a lovely slender crescent Moon in the southwest along with Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn after sunset.
9 Jan. First Quarter Moon, 18:11 UT
9 Jan. Venus reaches inferior conjunction. The planet lies nearly 5 degrees north of the Sun today and displays a razor-thin disk about 62.8” across. Observation with a telescope is possible, though the difficulties and potential dangers (of accidentally exposing your eye to the Sun) cannot be overestimated. This blog post by expert observer Ronald Stoyan gives you some tips about how to see this event. At inferior conjunction today, Venus lies closer to Earth than at any time in more than a century at a distance of just 39,763,000 km.
12 Jan. Look again to the southwestern horizon after sunset to see Mercury and Saturn about 5 degrees apart.
17 Jan. Full Moon, 23:48 UT
25 Jan. Last Quarter Moon, 13:41 UT
29 Jan. By the end of the month, bright planets are just getting started in the morning sky with many more alignments and conjunctions to come from now through June. Today, Mars and a slender crescent Moon lie just over the southwestern horizon. The pair lie about 4 degrees apart above the ‘Teapot’ of Sagittarius. Binoculars help improve the view. Mars presents a tiny disk in a telescope and shines at magnitude +1.4, nearly as faint as it ever gets. Some 12 degrees to the upper left of Mars sits bright Venus which has just emerged into the morning sky for much of the rest of the year.