FEBRUARY

SKY WATCH: Jupiter and Saturn, after passing behind the Sun during January's last week, have deserted the evening sky, leaving low Mercury alone to finish up its own challenging apparition. Mars also appears in the evening sky, much higher, on the Aries/Taurus boundary; although fading, the Red Planet is still conspicuous at magnitude 0.76. Watch it hover dramatically just above the waxing gibbous Moon on the 18th. Low in the predawn eastern sky at month's end, the Jupiter–Saturn–Mercury threesome has been copied and pasted from their January evening-sky venue, but the grouping is just 7 degrees high in the brightening twilight, requiring an unobstructed, oceanlike horizon. The asteroid Vesta, in the tail of Leo, can be easily seen with binoculars at magnitude 6.3.

All times are given in Eastern Standard Time.

To use this page, see p. 116; for Key Letters, see p. 238. light = a.m. bold = p.m.