Caoimhín's Content

New Year’s is almost upon us and it’s good to know what to look out for if you’re out under the stars. As it is tradition among many to stay up till midnight on as we go from one year to the next, it’s a perfect night to have a look at the stars and be prepared for what you’ll see. Some people stay up all night long, or get up early to see the first sunrise of the year, so we’ll go through the whole night of course, moving from 2023 to 2024.

Of course, you don’t have to stay up till midnight to see the stars. We have passed the winter solstice, so the days are starting to get longer, but it won’t be that noticeable for another little while, plenty will be visible by 6 o’clock, and the sky will be about as dark as it can get as early as 7 o’clock. This early, we can still catch Saturn, and the square of Pegasus, but they are staring to set early will soon leave the evening sky. Jupiter will also be visible nice and early, but it still appears close enough to the East to stay visible for a large portion of the night.

Once we get into what is normally considered night time, about 9 o’clock, we’re starting to Orion and the top of Canis Major. It will have been dark for a few hours at this point of course, but for anyone living closer to the Equator and still getting a reasonably long day, this is closer to what you will see. The brightest star and the second brightest planet will be in the sky to together, giving you a great opportunity to compare the two. The brightest planet, Venus, will be up in the morning as well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Midnight is the time we’re here for of course, ringing in the very beginning of the New Year. By this time the Moon is up and pretty close to full, so it will add a lot of light to the sky. Thankfully, it’s not enough to block out the bright stars of Orion and Canis Major, which are now straddling the South, as high and easy to see as they will be all night. Jupiter is still up of course, along with the Pleiades and the red star Aldebaran in Taurus, to the West of Orion, on your right facing South, and Gemini on the other side, above and between Orion and the Moon. The Moon is still far to the left , but high enough to observe all the same, in the constellation of Leo.

As the Moon is just a little bit past full, we can see some of the craters and shadows that they’re casting. The halfmoon of course is pretty much the best time to see the Moon’s texture this way, but anytime that the boundary between daytime and nighttime, the terminator, is visible on the Moon, you should see some of the peaks and valleys along that line. Here on the 1st of January, we are after midnight now, you can see some of the texture around the edge of the Sea of Tranquility, and the side of it where the Apollo 11 astronauts landed to boot. As we push into January and come up to the Half Moon or Last Quarter Moon, we’ll continue to get a view of the Moons surface relief, but this Half Moon is up in the morning rather than the evening. With a Half Moon, of course we only see half of the side we normally see, but there are two a month. Breaking the lunar cycle into four quarters, we have the New Moon, First Quarter Moon, Full Moon and Last Quarter Moon. Furthermore, we can only see a quarter of the Moon here really, as it is a sphere, so what we call a half is just a quarter of the surface really.

As we push toward morning time, Jupiter will set, followed by Orion and Sirius by about 4 o’clock in the morning, followed by Venus closer to 6 o’clock. A few months ago, the last time we really looked at Venus, it seemed much closer in the sky to Jupiter, around the constellation of Leo, but now it’s moving into Scorpius. While the other planets keep shifting, more or less, from East to West, Venus is tied close to the Sun always, whether you see it in the evening or in morning as in this case.

Venus is no longer alone in the morning, but starting to be rejoined by Mercury. If you are up early greeting the rising Sun, then Venus will be easy to spot, where as Mercury will be a faint spot just ahead of the Sun. This will get easier as we move into January, with Mercury coming to it’s Greatest Western Elongation around the 11th of January. It will still be tricky to see, this time of year the ecliptic will have such a shallow angle at sunrise that Mercury will stay quite low in the sky. This is less of a problem closer to the Summer and closer to the Equator. With all that said, if you have a clear horizon and an elevated viewpoint on a clear day, Mercury won’t be too far below Venus once we get a few days into the New Year. Mercury will disappear pretty early as the Sun rises, where as Venus will hold on until about half past 8 o’clock in the morning.

If you are lucky enough to be out in the countryside, under a dark sky, then of course your view will be better. New Year’s Eve is often a celebration of course, and a great excuse to pop out to relatives in the countryside if you’re stuck in the city. Unfortunately, the Moon is still pretty close to full, and by midnight it’s more than high enough to add some extra light to the sky. It’s not a major factor in the city, but if you are in the countryside it might be worth heading out a little earlier, about 8 o’clock in the evening or so. This early, the Moon won’t yet be up, Saturn will just be setting in the West while Sirius rises in the East, with all of Orion above the horizon, and Jupiter nice and high, practically due south. It’s a rich view full of famous and interesting objects and constellations. You can even see the Milky Way, with part of the brighter portion arcing up from the West, practically the North-West.

Of course all of this is purely for this year, moving from 2023 into 2024. The constellations will be in the same places next year, and Saturn in particular won’t wave moved much, but the Moon will be different. The calendar being used here is a solar one, based on our orbit around the Sun, and it doesn’t perfectly match up with the lunar cycle. The Moon will shift through phases on the same date each year, with occasional jumps. So it will be at least a little different on the same date next year.

The northern sky is of course the mostly the same all year long, the same stars will be visible. The positions of those stars will shift a little, appearing to rotate around the North Star. This happens every night as the Earth turns, but as we move around the Sun we also see the Plough or the Big Dipper in a slightly different place at a given time. We can see here that for this night at around midnight, the Plough is to the north east, still pointing at the North Star, practically in line with Moon on New Year’s Night.

So that’s the whole night. There is a little bit more in the video about light pollution, just explaining the settings I use in Stellarium, so do check it out if you are interested. We’ll take a further look into January next time, and of course there’ll be new videos to keep you updated on what’s in the sky all through the New Year. I hope you’ll join me then.