Welcome to Idaho Skies for the first week of January. We’re your hosts, Rachel...
PAUL
...and Paul.
RACHEL
The first major meteor shower of the year reaches its peak on the night of the 3rd and morning of the 4th.
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It’s the Quadrantid meteor shower and we can expect to see as many as 45 bluish meteors per hour.
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Unfortunately, the moon is one day from full.
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Which means its light will interfere with some of the fainter meteors.
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However, the average brightness of the shower’s meteors is pretty high.
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So there’ll still be plenty of meteors to see.
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If you plan to watch the Quadrantids, be sure to dress warmly and watch for meteors originating from the low north.
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The moon leads you to nice star clusters on the 9th.
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The clusters are located in the constellation of Cancer the Crab.
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To find them, point your binoculars at the moon at around 9:00 PM.
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Approximately half a binocular field of view below the moon is a small star cluster named M-67.
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It’s not very difficult to see the cluster as a fuzzy patch, but you’ll need to lower your binoculars a little bit further.
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That way the moon’s light won’t wash out the star cluster.
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A much easier to see star cluster is the Beehive star cluster, however.
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And you’ll find it to the upper left of the moon.
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The distance between the Beehive star cluster and the moon is just over a binocular field of view.
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So place the moon in the lower right edge of your binoculars.
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Then you’ll see the star cluster in the upper left corner of your binoculars.
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The Beehive star cluster is visible to the unaided eye in the dark skies that you’ll find outside of Boise.
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It appears just like it did to the ancients, a small fuzzy spot in the sky.
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Searching for Jupiter?
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Then look for the moon after 8:30 PM on the 7th.
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The bright star located to the moon’s upper left is Jupiter.
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You may notice that Jupiter doesn’t twinkle like the other bright stars.
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That’s because Jupiter’s large size lets it average out all the brightness fluctuations caused by moving pockets of air.
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This is pretty much true for all the planets.
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Even though stars have much larger disks than the planets, they’re so far away that they appear smaller than pin points of light.
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As a result, even small pockets of moving air can twist and bend the beams of starlight enough to make their color and brightness fluctuate.
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You can see all four of Jupiter’s large satellites through a spotting scope.
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From bottom to top, you’ll see Io, Jupiter, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
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They’ll form a compact group, so you might not be able to separate the satellites as well through a pair of binoculars.
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That’s Idaho Skies for the first week of January. Several planets make the news next week.
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Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Idaho Skies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps.
For Idaho Skies this is Rachel...
PAUL
...and Paul.
RACHEL
Dark skies and bright stars.
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