The Gardens of the Sky 10th to 16th February 2024

Having lost Mercury to superior conjunction (Mercury-Earth on opposite sides of the Sun) later this month, we can however still see Venus creeping up on Mars as the week progresses. The brilliant white Venus sits 15 deg. above the East to ESE at 5am with Mars the fainter red object and 3 deg. further east, a challenge however without binoculars.

Then, charge the cuppa and watch the glory of the Sun appearing to rise, which is really caused by the Earth’s rotation as the Sun’s position is fixed, thanks Galileo Galilei (Sun rotation) and Nicolaus Copernicus (Heliocentric Solar System). Don’t forget, by the time you see the first light of the Sun, the light is already 8 minutes old.

The western night sky is still limited to the planet Jupiter, which even just after sunset is visible 30 deg. above the NW horizon; on Thursday it twerks the approaching first quarter Moon sitting 4 deg. beneath it.

Are you into the International Space Station (ISS)? head out tonight by 8:50pm and look low in the West and just be patient. Hopefully after a minute or two you will pick it up rising upwards to the SW and then slowly dropping to towards the SSE. There are currently 7 crew continuing a history of over 3000 experiments over the last 21 years. The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes and in 24-hour period astronauts can marvel at 16 sunrises and sunsets.

It is with a heavy heart I have to report a colleague I worked with at the Perth Observatory has passed away. Mr. Greg Lowe worked at the Observatory as an Astronomical Officer for many years. I handed over the West Australian Newspaper column to him in the late 1980s when I left the Perth Observatory, and he continued this crucial informational column for West Australians as many other respected staff members of the Observatory did stretching back to 1896. In 2013 when the Observatory closed for “…research by public servants…” and he was the last Observatory Public Servant of a 117-year professional observatory. Greg can be seen with the Meridian Team in this photo we took, Greg is on the left top with his infectious smile, RIP mate as you flitter through the heavens you wrote about for all of us to revel in.