Special to CosmicTribune.com, February 12-17, 2024

Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12

■ Orion stands his highest in the south by about 8 p.m. Under Orion’s feet, and to the right of Sirius, hides Lepus the Hare. Like Canis Major, this is a constellation with a connect-the-dots that really looks like what it’s supposed to be. He’s a crouching bunny, with his nose pointing lower right, his faint ears extending up toward Rigel (Orion’s brighter foot).

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13

■ By 9 p.m. or so, the Big Dipper stands on its handle in the northeast. In the northwest, Cassiopeia also stands on end (its brighter end) at about the same height. Between them is Polaris.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14

■ The Moon and Jupiter shine only about 4° apart this evening for skywatchers in the Americas. They’re the two brightest things in the evening sky. Watch them pull closer together as they sink toward the west.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15

■ The Moon, the Pleiades, and Aldebaran form a large flat triangle this evening, as shown below.

The first-quarter Moon passes the Pleiades and Aldebaran. The Moon here is shown about three times its actual apparent diameter.

■ This evening Algol should be at minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for about two hours centered on 11:32 p.m. EST; 8:32 p.m. PST. Algol takes several hours to fade beforehand and to rebrighten after.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16

■ First-quarter Moon tonight (exactly first-quarter at 10:01 a.m. EST). Just lower right of the Moon, by about 2° or 3° for North America, spot the Pleiades as shown.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17

■ Right after night is completely dark this week, the W of Cassiopeia shines high in the northwest standing almost on end. Near the zenith is Capella.

The brightest star about midway between Cassiopeia and Capella (and a little to the left) is Alpha Persei, magnitude 1.8. It lies on the lower-right edge of the Alpha Persei Cluster: a large, elongated, very loose swarm of fainter stars about the size of your thumbtip at arm’s length. At least a dozen are 6th magnitude or brighter, bright enough to show well in binoculars even through the moonlight this evening.

Alpha Per, a white supergiant, is a true member of the group and is its brightest light. It and the rest are about 560 light-years away.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18

■ Canopus, the second-brightest star after Sirius, happens to lie almost due south of Sirius: by 36°. That’s far enough south that it never appears above your horizon unless you’re below latitude 37° N (southern Virginia, southern Missouri, central California). And near there, you’ll need a very flat south horizon.

Canopus crosses the south point on the horizon just 21 minutes before Sirius does. So, when to look? Canopus is due south when Beta Canis Majoris — Murzim the Announcer, the star about three finger-widths to the right of Sirius — is at its highest due south over your landscape. That’s about 8 or 9 p.m. now, depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone. Drop straight down from Murzim then.

■ Algol should be at minimum light, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for about two hours centered on 8:21 p.m. EST.

  The sky: February 12-18; Watch the Moon and Jupiter on the 14th