Skynotes: January 2020
Dome Under Fulldome Festival | 9–8 February
First ever festival in Australia in fulldome format showcasing over 40 experimental, documentary, narrative, student, and astronomy educational feature films and shorts from 16 countries.
Dome Under Fulldome Festival will be a weekend extravaganza of experimental, narrative, documentary, student, and astronomy educational feature films and shorts ending with awards for best films.
Planetarium Nights | Friday 3, 10, 17 & 24, 31 January
Evenings for adults
7.30pm – Capturing the Cosmos & What’s In The Sky Tonight live presentation
9.00pm – The Wall
Melbourne sun times
| Date | Rise / Solar noon* / Set (day length) |
|---|---|
| Wed 1st | 6.01am / 1.23pm / 8.45pm (14.44 hrs) |
| Sat 11th | 6.09am / 1.27pm / 8.45pm (14.35 hrs) |
| Tue 21st | 6.20am / 1.31pm / 8.41pm (14.21 hrs) |
| Fri 31st | 6.31am / 1.33pm / 8.34pm (14.02 hrs) |
*When the Sun is at its highest crossing the meridian or local longitude.
Moon phases
| Phase | Date |
|---|---|
| First Quarter | Friday 3rd |
| Full Moon | Saturday 11th |
| Third Quarter | Friday 17th |
| New Moon | Saturday 25th |
This month the Moon will be at apogee (furthest from Earth) on Thursday 2nd at 404,580 km and perigee (closest to Earth) on Thursday 14th at 365,958 km.
Planets
Mercury will be very low in the southwest at evening setting soon after sunset.
Venus, ‘the evening star’, is still bright in the west setting by midnight.
Mars is faint and low in the eastern morning sky.
Jupiter has gone from evening skies but will rise before sunrise in the east by end of the month.
Saturn is too close to the sun and not visible.
Meteors
The month’s most active shower, the Quadrantids, is a Northern Hemisphere shower peaking on the 4th resulting from Asteroid 2003 EH1 (likely an extinct comet), or possibly from the active Comet 96P/Machholtz that orbits the sun every 6 years. In the Southern Hemisphere is Eta Carinids active from 14th–27th with typically faint meteors of only 2 or 3 per hour at its peak on the 21st. This shower is centred near the faint star Eta Carina located near the Southern Cross. It is high in the south midnight to dawn, an ideal time for meteor observing.
Stars & Constellations
High up directly east is Sirius, the brightest star at night in Canis Major (Greater Dog) while Orion, the hunter, is in the north-east easily located by the three bright stars that form his belt. In Australia, the belt is the base of the Saucepan while its handle (the sword of Orion) contains a spectacular nebula that is the birthplace of new stars. Above the Saucepan is the blue supergiant star Rigel and below is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.
To the left of Orion in the north-east is Taurus, the Bull, with the red giant star Aldebaran. Further to the north-east is the beautiful Pleiades Cluster (Seven Sisters) a group of blue giant stars that in many cultures represents a group of women.
In the Boorong tradition of north-west Victoria, Sirius is the head of Warepil the wedge-tailed eagle. The Saucepan or centre of Orion is Kulkunbulla, two young men dancing, and Taurus’s head is the songman Gellarlac who through song passes on his knowledge, while the nearby Pleiades is Larnankurk who beats out the rhythm with her drum.
The Andromeda galaxy is low in the northern sky this month appearing as a small fuzzy patch. At 2 million light years it is the most distant object visible with the unaided eye, but best seen away from light polluted areas.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of our nearest galaxies at 160,000 light years and 200,000 light years, are high in the southern sky. Away from city lights, they appear as two fuzzy patches or ‘clouds’. For the Boorong they are the campfires of the Nurrumbunguttias, the ancient lawgivers who created everything on the land and guard over the country and all it contains.
International Space Station
ISS orbits every 90 minutes at an average distance of 400km appearing like a bright star moving slowly across the night sky. This month most passes over Melbourne are during daylight hours, but here are two visible passes expected over Melbourne and Central Victoria:
- Saturday 4th 9:48pm-9:54pm NorthWest to SouthEast
- Wednesday 29th 4:41am-4:44am WestNorthWest to SouthEast
For predictions go to heavens-above.com.
On this day
1st 1801, Ceres was discovered by Giuseppi Piazzi; thought first to be a planet, then an asteroid, and now a minor planet.
1st 2019, New Horizons probe (USA) made its 3,500 km close fly-by of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, a twin-lobed contact binary dubbed ‘Ultima Thule’ now formally named Arrokoth.
2nd 1959, first detection of solar wind by Luna 1 (USSR) as it passed the moon.
4th 1958, the first satellite, Sputnik (USSR), fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated after 11 weeks in orbit.
4th 1959, first human-made object enters heliocentric orbit, Luna 1 (USSR).
4th 1643, birth of Isaac Newton famous for studies in optics, the reflecting telescope, laws of gravitation and motion, and co-creator of calculus.
5th 2005, discovery of the most massive and second largest dwarf planet, Eris at 2,300 km diameter, by team led by Mike Brown at Palomar Observatory.
7th 1610, Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter's four largest moons Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede supports the heliocentric (sun-centred) theory of the solar system.
8th 1942, birth of Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University theoretical physicist, cosmologist, science celebrity.
9th 1992, first exoplanets are found orbiting a pulsar 2300 light years away in Virgo.
11th 1787, discovery of Uranus’s two largest moons Titania (diameter 1576km) and Oberon (1522km) by William Herschel. Both are tidally locked to Uranus.
14th 2005, ESA’s Hygens probe is first to land on an outer solar system body, Saturn’s moon Titan (5148km) revealing dunes, methane/ethane seas, wind and weather.
15th 1980, Alan Guth’s inflation theory first released solving issues with the big bang theory and the ‘horizon problem’ (why the universe looks similar in every direction).
16th 1969, first docking in space and first crew exchange in space between Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 (USSR) in Earth orbit.
18th 1916, meteorite falls onto occupied house in Baxter, Missouri (USA).
19th 2006, New Horizons probe (USA) was launched on a 9-year trip to its 2015 12,500km fly-by of Pluto followed by an extended mission into the Kuiper Belt.
23rd 2003, final communication with Pioneer 10 (USA), first interplanetary probe to Jupiter, which later left the solar system.
25th 2006, first icy-rocky planet discovered orbiting a main sequence star, a red dwarf at 21,500 light years from Earth.
27th 1967, fire in Apollo 1 (USA) command module kills crew of three in ground test at Kennedy Space Centre causing program delay and complete overhaul of spacecraft and safety systems.
28th 1986, space shuttle Challenger (USA), the 10th shuttle flight, explodes 73 seconds after lift-off killing all seven crew and halting the program for 32 months.
31st 1961, first hominid in space, chimpanzee Ham, in Mercury-Redstone 2 (USA), who survived and lived in zoos until 1983.
31st 1958, discovery by James Van Allen of radiation belts of charged particles from the Sun that surround Earth and which now bear his name.
31st 1958, Explorer 1 the first successful American satellite launch, and first satellite to carry instruments into space.