Sky Guide January 2017

What to look out, and up, for in January.

Our highlights of this month’s skies with the planets on offer to observers and imagers:

• Venus at greatest eastern elongation
• Mars a few degrees from Venus
• Jupiter in Virgo
• Saturn & Mercury in the morning sky
• Next up is the other solar system wonders of note in January:
• The Quadrantids meteor shower peaking on 3-4th January with a ZHR of around 40
• The largest asteroid, Vesta, at opposition passing through Cancer into Gemini

Then we each take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

• Jen – M33, spiral galaxy in the constellation Triangulum
• Paul – NGC 2903, barred spiral galaxy in Leo
• Ralph – Messier 35, open cluster in Gemini

And we finish this sky guide with January’s moon phases.