February 1, 2025: After sundown, look for a spectacular grouping of Venus and the crescent moon. The moon is a super crescent.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 7:04 a.m. CST; Sunset, 5:05 p.m. CST. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
February’s Daylight
Today, daylight’s length is 10 hours, 3 minutes at Chicago’s latitude. During February, daylight gains 70 minutes as the sun appears farther northward.
Nightly Planet Parade
Four bright planets – Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars – are easily visible after sunset. This evening’s planet parade is punctuated by a spectacular Venus-Moon conjunction in the southwestern sky.
After sundown, look for brilliant Venus and the crescent moon in the west-southwest. They are visible shortly after sundown, though dimmer Saturn is easily visible 11.4° below the Evening Star when the sky is darker.
Venus, nearing its greatest brightness, is 2.4° to the crescent moon’s upper right. Through a telescope, Venus displays a phase that is 37% illuminated, an evening crescent.
These events inspire artists and photographers. Look for social media to be full of pretty views of Venus, Saturn, and the crescent moon.
Super Crescent Moon
The moon, 15% illuminated, is near perigee – its closest point to Earth – which occurs at 8:47 p.m. Central Time tonight. If this were a Full moon, it would be called a supermoon. Because the moon is a crescent and appearing within 5° of Venus, we are dubbing this a “super crescent moon.”
At this brightness, Venus can be found during the day, although there is no easy reference point in the daytime sky. At this lunar phase, the moon is nearby and can be seen during the daytime. If the sky is exceptionally clear today around 3 p.m., when Venus and the moon are over halfway up in the south, look for them. Venus looks like a bright pinpoint of light surrounded by daytime’s blue sky.
Earthshine
Tonight, look for earthshine on the crescent moon. The effect is sunlight that is reflected from Earth’s oceans, clouds, and land that softly illuminates the lunar night. Photograph the effect with camera exposures up to a few seconds. The accompanying photo shows a similar Venus-Moon conjunction on July 17, 2020, at nearly the same illumination, though their separation was 3.6° and this occurred before sunrise.
Look at earthshine with a binocular or a spotting scope. Hold the binocular so that Venus appears with the crescent.
Look for Neptune
At the end of twilight, about 90 minutes after sundown, attempt to see Neptune, in the same binocular field with Venus and the lunar crescent. Identify the stars 20 Piscium (20 Psc on the chart) and 24 Piscium (24 Psc). Appearing as a bluish star, the dim planet is between 24 Piscium and the moon. This might be one of the last nights to easily see the planet.
In a few nights, moonlight creates a veil of light, washing out the dimmer stars, a similar effect is created by outdoor lighting. By the time the evening moon is far enough eastward and not appearing at the same time as Neptune, the planet is dimmer from the atmosphere’s filtering and blurring effects.
Saturn and Neptune
When Neptune reappears in the morning sky after its solar conjunction on March 19th, Saturn is nearby, serving as a helpful guide for continued efforts to spot it, Neptune’s altitude – height above the horizon – is favorable before sunrise beginning in late spring and until the planet disappears into western evening twilight next year.
Saturn is less than 20° above the horizon. Although it sets almost three hours after sundown, it is heading into brighter evening twilight.
Jupiter with Taurus
An hour after sunset, Jupiter is the bright star high in the southeastern sky. It retrogrades in front of Taurus, 5.1° to Aldebaran’s upper left, Taurus’ brightest star. This apparent westward trek ends on the 4th when the planet again moves eastward compared to the distant stars.
Mars and Gemini
At this hour, Mars is over 30° above the eastern horizon and nearly 40° to Jupiter’s lower left. It retrogrades in front of Gemini, 4.2° to Pollux’s upper right and 5.9° to Castor’s lower right. Mars’ retrograde illusion ends on the 23rd.
Planets Parade Westward
The four planets and the moon parade westward as Earth rotates during the night. Jupiter is south when Saturn is low in the west-southwest. Venus and the lunar crescent set an hour later. Jupiter sets several hours before sunrise. Mars is south before midnight and it sets in the west-northwest during morning twilight.
Find these four bright planets and the moon in the sky again tomorrow evening. The crescent moon’s phase is thicker and above Venus.
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