Stargazers across the UK could be in for a treat over the next few days, as the Quadrantids meteor shower takes place alongside a partial eclipse of the sun. The partial eclipse will occur with the top left corner of the sun blocked by the moon at dawn, and will peak on January 4th. The Quadrantids are a regular meteor shower that occurs around the first week each January. Read more
Uranus does get bright enough to spot with the naked eye from a dark observing site, and over the next week it is an easy target in binoculars. After twilight fades to darkness, Jupiter will be shining brightly high in the southern sky. In binoculars you might see Jupiter's moons as a few points of light on either side of the planet. Tonight and tomorrow, Uranus lies just above Jupiter in your binocular view. Afterward, Jupiter's quicker motion eastward puts Uranus to the upper right. Source
January 2011 arrives with a brief but intense meteor shower visible the night of January 3-4. Known as the Quadrantids, more than 100 meteors an hour have been seen in some years. You will see the most well after midnight. This year, a new moon also arrives Jan. 4, giving a dark sky all night long. Read more
The New Year kicks off in fine style with two celestial highlights occurring within the space of a few hours. First up is the Quadrantid meteor shower, one of the years more prolific, which is active between 1 and 7 January and peaks in the early morning hours of the 4th. The peak only lasts for a few hours, normally between 1am and 3am and is therefore often missed by observers. This year, there will be no moonlight, so conditions (weather aside) will be ideal. Read more
Early on during the first month of 2011, we kick off the new year with a regularly pleasing meteor shower. The Quadrantids typically produce around 40 shooting stars and hour under a good dark sky. The peak evenings to witness a few or a dozen of these is after midnight on Jan. 3-4. Read more
The other highlights for this first month of the year include another meteor shower, Jupiter still gracing our evening sky, and Saturn and Venus adorning our morning sky. The Quadrantid Meteor shower will peak around 1 a.m. on Jan. 4. You could start looking around 9 p.m. on Jan. 3 to catch a few "earth grazers" that skim along our upper atmosphere. The moon will not interfere, so we might get lucky and see up to 60 meteors per hour. However, this peak is very narrow and is not perfectly placed for us in the Northeast, because the constellation from which these meteors will appear to originate, Bootes, will not be above the horizon yet. Just like the Geminids last month, these meteors are also caused by an asteroid. Named EH1, this was probably a piece of a comet that broke off about 500 years ago. Read more
Ed ~ The peak is predicted to occur at 1:00 UT, 4th January, 2011.
The Beehive Cluster Otherwise known as M44 . This is an open cluster and is a wonderful object for binoculars or a small telescope. It contains nearly 200 stars. At a magnitude of 3.7, the cluster should be visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch of light, and as such was known to the ancients and actually included in some of their myths. Hipparchus in 130 BC called it "the little cloud". Its true nature was never revealed until 1610 when Galileo became the first person to ever see it through a telescope. Using your binoculars, you should find about 80 (many more, if you're using a telescope). Since the Beehive is about 450 light years away the light you are seeing tonight left before Galileo first lifted his telescope toward the sky.
The Orion Nebula Orion is a favourite target of telescope owners. In the centre of Orion's sword, just below the `belt`, lies the great Orion Nebula . Even small 60mm telescopes will show the brightest regions of the nebula and the "Trapezium"; a grouping of the brightest blue stars near the centre. The nebula glows because of the intense energy being radiated by them. The red light shows the location of the hydrogen gas, the blue light is light being reflected from the Trapezium. The blue colour has the same origin as the blue light of our daytime sky, the dust particles in this nebula, reflect blue light more readily than red.