Special to CosmicTribune.com, January 15, 2024

Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14

■ The Gemini twins lie on their sides these January evenings, left of Orion. Their head stars, Castor and Pollux, are farthest from Orion, one over the other. Castor is the top one. The feet of the Castor stick figure are just left of the top of Orion’s (very dim) Club.

MONDAY, JANUARY 15

■ A fast-creeping red dwarf. Have you ever seen a red dwarf star? These are the most common stars in space, but they’re so intrinsically dim that not one is among the 6,000 stars visible to the naked eye on even the darkest night.

One of the nearest lies just 3° west of Procyon, beautifully placed late these January evenings. It’s Luyten’s Star, also known as GJ 273, and at visual magnitude 9.9 it’s in range of small telescopes.

This humble object is only 12.3 light-years away, so it is also a high proper motion star; it creeps across its starry backdrop by 3.7 arcseconds per year. This means that a careful amateur telescope user may detect its motion in as little as about three years

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16

■ The big Northern Cross in Cygnus, topped by Deneb, is nearly upright in the west-northwest right after full darkness falls. Another hour or so and it’s standing on the horizon. How straight up it stands depends on your latitude.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17

■ First-quarter Moon (exact at 10:52 p.m. EST). The Moon shines high in the south at dusk in early evening, with Jupiter at first about a fist to its left, then later to its upper left.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 18

■ The Moon, a day past first quarter, shines close to Jupiter. These are currently the two brightest things in the evening sky, and they are only 3° or 4° apart (for the Americas).

What are the odds that those two brightest objects in that whole expanse, from horizon to horizon, will appear so close together?

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20

■ Sirius twinkles brightly after dinnertime below Orion in the southeast. Around 8 or 9 p.m., depending on your location, Sirius shines precisely below fiery Betelgeuse in Orion’s shoulder.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 21

■ Right after dark, face east and look very high. The bright star there is Capella, the Goat Star. To the right of it, by a couple of finger-widths at arm’s length, is a small, narrow triangle of 3rd and 4th magnitude stars known as “The Kids.” Though they’re not exactly eye-grabbing, they form a never-forgotten asterism with Capella.