Sunsets in February will end with a bonus throughout the month: Every planet in the solar system will be visible in the night sky.
Astronomy buffs call it a “parade of planets.” And most of them can be seen with the naked eye except for Neptune, which will require a telescope. Uranus and Mercury will require binoculars.
“ People should be outside at sunset looking for the planets,” said Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. “They will march across your sky.”
Viewing all the planets in a single night requires some planning. Faherty said the planets will set in a specific order. After sunset, look westward and first find Mercury next to the sun, followed by Saturn, then Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter, and finally Mars.
Planet-setting times differ each day. The Old Farmer’s Almanac has a calculator to figure out when each planet rises and sets. Mercury disappears from view a few minutes after sunset.
“Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are the ones that are easiest to notice because they’re bright and they’re beautiful,” Faherty said. “Venus will be at its greatest brightness for the year this month.”
A shortcut for New Yorkers to spot some of the planets is to look for them when they are near the moon. On Feb. 1, Venus will appear just above the crescent moon. On the third day of the month, Neptune will appear under Venus. Mars will appear near the moon on Feb. 9.
While scanning the sky for planets, don’t miss the constellation Orion the Hunter. The star that marks the upper left shoulder is called Betelgeuse. The red star is nearing the end of its life and could go nova at any moment in the next 200 years. The supergiant star has a diameter that is 700 times larger than the sun, and 100,000 times brighter.
“ Orion is a pretty awesome constellation because it’s up for the majority of the night,” Faherty said.
On Feb. 6, the star cluster Pleiades will appear near the moon. The bright blue cluster contains more than 1,000 stars. Pleiades is easy to find by following the line of stars on Orion’s belt – Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka – to the hunter’s bow. Next to it is the bright red star Aldebaran, located in the constellation of Taurus. Adjacent to the red star is a group of luminescent blue dots. That’s Pleiades.
”With just the naked eye, find the moon in the evening. It’ll be up high, and the Pleiades will be right next to it,” Bart Fried, a member of the American Astronomical Society, said. “ This is something you can watch over a period of a couple hours and actually note the motion of the moon in relation to the background stars.”
The best time for viewing the planets and stars will be the beginning and end of the month. That’s because the full moon shines on Feb. 12. Native Americans referred to it as the snow moon because of the weather around this time of year. The Cherokee called it the hungry moon because of the difficulty finding food in the winter.
The Amateur Astronomers Association is hosting telescope viewing events during the first week of the month in Fort Greene, at Floyd Bennett Field and Queensborough Community College.