Sun rises at 6:45am
Sun sets at 6:03pm
Moon phase: second quarter, waxing
Moon rises at 2:30am, Saturday
Moon sets at 3:27am, Sunday
This weekend, head outside after dark and look for the waxing gibbous moon. Early in the coming week, you’ll see a very special full moon – what’s lately been called a super moon – slightly larger than your normal full moon. And as we noted last week, it’s also a blue moon, which has nothing to do with the colour you observe, but is merely a statistical term indicating a second blue moon in a single calendar month.
This weekend, the gibbous moon sits amid the Winter Circle. All the stars of the Winter Circle are very bright, so they should be clearly visible even though they’ll be drenched in moonlight.
The Winter Circle is not a constellation. It’s a lot of separate stars in different constellations. In other words, it’s what’s called an asterism. From our location in St. Maarten, we can see these same bright stars before dawn in late summer and early fall, but the best time to view them is any clear evening during the winter; hence the name Winter Circle.
To learn the stars of the Winter Circle, start with our old friend Orion. His three-star belt is easily identified. The Circle begins with Orion’s foot, a star called Rigel. From that star, send your eyes on a circle, going left around the moon and Orion’s Belt, to arrive at the brightest true star in the Earth’s sky, Sirius, the Dog Star. I sometimes tell young stargazers that the Dog is following the Hunter, it’s a way of helping to remember their positions.
Continue around the circle to arrive at the bright star Procyon, or Little Dog Star. The next stars are the twin stars of the Gemini Constellation, Pollux and Castor. Around the circle we go, taking us to the star Capella in the constellation Auriga. The circle comes to completion at the bright star Aldebaran, in the constellation Taurus. Inside the circle is the star Betelgeuse (which is pronounced Beetle Juice!) which marks the location of Orion’s shoulder.
The moon will be “Super Full” Tuesday and Wednesday next week – “Super” meaning its closer to earth than normal. Ancient astronomers were well aware of the moon’s changing distance from Earth. They used a special instrument called a diopter to measure the angular diameter of the moon. And, of course, nowadays we’ve actually travelled to the moon. Apollo astronauts left laser reflectors on the moon, which help provide the moon’s day-to-day distance with stunning precision.
By the way, if you read about a Lunar Eclipse occurring next week, don’t get too excited, our location doesn’t allow a good view of the eclipse. However, if you watch the full moon rise next Wednesday (January 31) you might catch the end of the shadow of the earth crossing the face of the moon. The Eclipse for us will end just as the moon rises. Good luck with that!
Thank you for keeping up with the Night Sky articles. If you are out later on in the week, each star rises about four minutes earlier each day than written here, and the moon rises 50 minutes later. Night Sky is researched and compiled by Lisa Davis-Burnett. Earthsky.org is a key resource for information and images. Questions or comments? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
