Monday 24th to Sunday 30th January 2022
If you look due south around 10.30pm on Thursday 27th you can see the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius; the name being derived from the Greek word for "glowing". It is the alpha star in the constellation of Canis Major. Stars in a constellation are allocated letters of the Greek alphabet to identify them. Particularly significant stars are also given names.
Sirius is one of our closest neighbours outside the Solar System and is only 8.6 light years away from us. The star is gradually moving closer to us and its brightness is expected to increase slightly over the next 60,000 years.
A little below Sirius is the open cluster of stars, identified by Charles Messier and given the designation M41. The cluster contains around 100 stars including several red giants. It has a magnitude of around +6.3 so cannot be seen with the naked eye, but a pair of binoculars will do fine. M41 is 2300 light years away from us and is estimated to be around 190 million years old. Further estimates give it a life expectancy of about 500 million years before it disintegrates, so there is plenty of time to observe it!
Alternatively, if you are up early around 6am on Friday 28th and look towards the south east, there will be a 21%-lit crescent Moon, with Venus to the left of it. The Sun terminator, the border between light and dark on the Lunar surface, will be illuminating the crater Aristarchus which is the brightest feature on the nearside face of the Moon.
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
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