Naked Eye Astronomy Tonight (NEAT) January 2, 2017

The NEAT posts on this blog are aimed at the casual observer with no astronomy prerequisites.  The goal is to have more eyes in the sky to point out interesting things to friends and neighbours.

1. Planetary/Lunar Alignment
2. Orion

1. Visible from approximately 5pm onward with clear skies this evening there will be a nice alignment of our three closest celestial neighbours.  The Moon, Mars and Venus will put on a show in the south east sky.  The Moon and Venus will likely be the first to catch your eye.  Mars will be to the upper left of the moon shining as a dimmer rusty coloured object while Venus will shine as a very bright object to the lower right of the Moon.  As a side note, Neptune will be between Mars and the Moon, however far too dim to see without strong binoculars or a telescope.

January 2, 2017 Planetary Alignment

2. Another interesting sight to see later in the evening (after 8pm) is the constellation Orion.  It makes its way across the sky almost directly East to West.  This constellation tends to be a favourite throughout the winter.  The three belt stars shine brightly making the constellation instantly recognizable.  There are some interesting things to note as you are looking at it.

The alpha star known as 'Betelgeuse' is a red supergiant nearly 900 times the radius of our sun.  It is nearly at the end of its life and will likely go supernova within the next million years. See if you can see the red colour associated with it using your eyes.

The beta star known as 'Rigel' is a blue supergiant.  Compare the colour between Rigel and Betelgeuse.

The final thing to see in the constellation with your naked eye is the Great Orion Nebula.  It lies beneath the belt and above the two bottom stars circled with red in the image below.  It is essentially a giant gas cloud that is making new stars.  It may look like a blur in the sky to your naked eye.  With even the most casual binoculars the gas cloud really jumps out at you.

Orion

I spent some time in the cold during the morning of December 29, 2016 taking some untracked, unprocessed images of the constellation and objects within it.

Orion from Calgary, December 29, 2016 02:30

Lower Portion of Orion (Including Nebula), December 29, 2016 02:30

Orion Nebula (M42)

Check back often for more updates of things you can see while out and about!