2022, February 17: Morning Planets, Moon, Evening Charioteer

Astronomy
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February 17, 2022:  Venus and Mars are in the morning, as Mercury departs.  The moon is in the western morning sky.  Jupiter leaves the evening sky.  Auriga is nearly overhead.

Chart Caption – 2022, February 17: Capella and its constellation Auriga is nearly overhead during the early evening hours.

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by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Chicago, Illinois:  Sunrise, 6:43 a.m. CST; Sunset, 5:26 p.m. CST.  Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times for your location.

Morning Sky

SUMMARY OF PLANETS IN 2022 MORNING SKY

Mars slipped past brilliant Venus in a wide conjunction yesterday morning.   Venus catches Mars again on March 6 in a third conjunction in a triple conjunction series.

This morning Venus, dimmer Mars and the star Albaldah – “the city” – fit into a binocular field. The Red Planet is 2.3° below Albaldah.

Mercury is retreating into bright twilight.  At forty-five minutes before sunrise, the speedy planet is 16.0° to the lower left of Venus and only 4° above the east-southeast horizon.  A binocular is needed to initially find the planet.  Because it is so low and quickly moving into brighter twilight, we say, “Goodbye!” to Mercury until it reappears in the evening sky and passes near the Pleiades during late April.

Chart Caption – 2022, February 17: The bright moon is in the west before sunrise, to the upper left of Regulus.

At this hour, the bright moon, 99% illuminated, is less than 20° above the western horizon and 8.4° to the upper left of Regulus, the brightest star in Leo.

Evening Sky

Chart Caption – 2022, February 17: Capella and its constellation Auriga is nearly overhead during the early evening hours.

Jupiter is reaching the end of its evening visibility at forty-five minutes after sunset. It is only 3° above the west-southwest horizon.

At this hour, the moon is low in the east-northeastern sky.

With the moon and bright planets leaving the evening sky, winter’s bright stars are in the southern sky.  This evening step outside about two hours after sunset and look nearly overhead.  Capella – “the little she goat” – is the bright star that’s there.

The star is the brightest in Auriga, the Charioteer, a misshapen kite or lop-sided pentagon. The shape is made of relatively bright stars that can be seen on any reasonably clear night.  To get the pentagon, Elnath, formally one of the horns of Taurus, is included.

Artwork of the figure frequently shows reins in one hand, the she goat and three tiny goats – “the kids” – cuddled in the other arm.  There is little mythology to describe the nature of the figure.

Author Peter Lum, in his book, The Stars in our Heaven, suspects that the figure was really a shepherd because the figure lacks the chariot and a horse.

Capella is the sixth brightest star visible from Earth, and the fourth brightest seen at the mid-northern latitudes, after Sirius, Arcturus, and Vega.  Through a binocular, that is difficult to use when the star is at this altitude, or a telescope, the star is distinctly yellow-white, like our sun, although at a distance of about 40 light years, it shines with a brightness of over 100 suns.

Capella is relatively far north in the sky, although not as far north as the Big Dipper.  Our southern hemisphere readers see the star less than 10° up in the north when it is highest.  For those who live at latitudes higher than 47° north, they see the star in the sky every clear night.  It never sets from those regions, in the same manner that the Big Dipper does not set from regions a little farther south.

Stop back tomorrow for another constellation in this region of the sky.

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