These notes are intended to provide a casual skywatcher or someone already into amateur astronomy living on the East Coast of Australia with a short summary of what is happening in the night sky in January 2011. Instructions on how to obtain customised satellite viewing information for your location can be found here. If you find this page of interest, you may wish to follow this website automatically using Twitter and the sites RSS Feed.
Planets this month (January 2011)
Mercury and Venus will be visible all month above the Eastern horizon in the pre-dawn sky. Mercury will be located closer to the horizon than Venus (which reaches greatest Western elongation from the Sun on 9 January).
Mars is not visible due to its closeness to the Sun. Mars is slowly moving towards being in conjunction with the Sun which will occur on 5 February.
Jupiter can easily be located above the Western horizon and appears to the unaided eye as a bright star. It remains visible in the sky almost the entire night. Uranus remains relatively close to Jupiter. A finder chart can be found here http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/12435011.html that will let you locate Uranus and also Neptune with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope.
Saturn is visible in the morning sky. It rises around 11.30 pm AEST mid-month and is visible for the remainder of the night.
Individual sky events (January 2011)
All times listed for the AEST time zone (U.T. plus 10 hours). Add one hour to times listed if your state or territory follows daylight savings time.
January 2: 5am Antares 2.6 degrees South of Moon
January 2: 8pm Moon furthest South (-24.2 degrees)
January 2: Midnight Mercury 3.7 North of Moon
January 4: 3am Pluto 4.2 North of the Moon
January 4: 4am Earth at perihelion
January 4: 7am New Moon Partial eclipse of the Sun (Not visible from Australia
January 4: 10pm Jupiter 0.5 South of Uranus
January 5: 9 am Mars 2.7 South of Moon
January 8: 6am Neptune 4.7 South of the Moon
January 9: 4am Venus greatest elongation West (47 degrees)
January 10: 6am Mercury greatest elongation West (23 degrees)
January 10: 4 pm Moon at apogee (furthest from Earth at 404,977km)
January 10: 7pm Uranus 5.9 degrees South of the Moon
January 12: 9pm First Quarter Moon
January 17: 8am Moon furthest North (24.1 degrees)
January 18: 3pm Mercury 4.1 degrees South of Pluto
January 20: 7am Full Moon
January 22: 9am Regulus 4.8 degrees North of Moon
January 22: 10am Moon at perigee (Closest to Earth at 362, 792 km)
January 25: Saturn 8 degrees North of Moon
January 26: 2am Spica 2.8 degrees North of Moon
January 26: 10.57pm Last Quarter Moon
January 27: 6pm Saturn stationary
January 29: 10am Antares 2.6 degrees South of Moon
January 30: 2am Moon furthest South (-24.1 degrees)
January 30: 1pm Venus 3.4 degrees North of Moon
January 31: 12 Noon Pluto 4.1 degrees North of Moon
January 31: Mercury at aphelion
For Further Information
Planet and Moon Rise/Set Times
Planet and Moon rise/set times for 2011 can be found here on this website.
Customised Astronomy & Satellite Viewing information
Information on how to obtain customised astronomy & satellite viewing information for your location can be found here on this website.
