What’s up? The night sky January-March 2023
Cooking up some new stars
The Summer evening skies are the perfect time to view the prominent constellation of Orion. Colloquially known as ‘the Saucepan’ it contains two of the brightest stars in the night sky, the red supergiant Betelgeuse and Rigel, a blue supergiant.
The middle star of the sword (or saucepan handle) appears fuzzy, it’s actually the nebula M42, a cloud of gas where hundreds of new stars are being formed. It is a stunning object through a small telescope and at about 1340 light years away it’s the closest star-forming region to us.
Brightest star
The nearby constellation of Canopus Major contains the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius. Its brightness is mainly due to it being only 8.6 light years from us.
Parade of planets
The summer months also provide some lovely views of planets. On 23 January Saturn and Venus lie below a thin crescent Moon low in the western evening sky.
Venus and Jupiter will be about the width of the Moon apart on 2 March in the north-western evening sky.
Total eclipse of the Sun
In the next issue we will have information about the solar eclipse visible on 20 April 2023. A partial eclipse will be visible across Australia, but Western Australia will have the best view with the Murchison and Perth seeing a large partial eclipse and Exmouth seeing the total solar eclipse.
View of Venus, Saturn and the Moon in the evening sky, 23 January. Produced using Stellarium, www.stellarium.org
Rob Hollow, CSIRO