Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to continue looking at the year ahead. We will cover one or two things that are happening in January, things that I mentioned in the last video, but we are also going to look ahead to see some of the interesting things that are coming up later in 2025.

First off, the 10th of January is the date of Venus’s greatest eastern elongation making it visible in the west at sunset. From this date forward, if you go out at the same time each night, it does look like Venus is continuing to move in the wrong direction. Venus will seem to continue to get higher, even though it is really looping back in to get closer to the Sun. Saturn will slide behind Venus moving in the “correct” direction. Really it’s just that our motion around the Sun is making it look like Saturn’s moving faster. If we take a look at Venus in isolation, with no ground or sunset glow, the difference is easier to see. Over the course of it’s orbit, Venus will come out from the Sun, in this case to the east, it will reaches its peak distance from the Sun, and then it loops around coming back in towards the Sun. A lot of where we see Venus depends on Venus’s position around the Sun. Saturn on the other hand is moving around the Sun so slowly that a lot of where we see Saturn depends on our position around the Sun. Saturn will go behind the Sun mostly because we’re moving until we’re in a position where Saturn is behind the Even though Venus looks like it’s further from the Sun each day, really it’s just an illusion. The Sun is getting closer and closer to the horizon at a given time, the same reason that the evenings are getting brighter. Even though Venus is getting closer to the Sun, it will appear to move further form the horizon for a while, but only because the Sun will be closer to the horizon at a given time.

Moving ahead to the 16th brings us to the date where Mars reaches opposition. I mentioned Mars’s opposition a couple of times recently, particularly because if I click on Mars in Stellarium, it will say that it’s 99.9% full instead of 100% full. I’m putting that down to the tilt for now, unless anything in any research I do shows up something different. I’m going to say that the reason we’re not seeing Mars at 100% full is something to do with the tilt of Mars, because it is at opposition on this date. A planet at opposition is in line with us and the Sun, just like a Full Moon. However, just as not every Full Moon is a lunar eclipse, Mars may be higher or lower than us on the plane of the ecliptic, causing us to miss a portion of it’s illuminated surface due to the angle. Using Stellarium, we can see Mars coming over the horizon as the Sun goes under the horizon, but the real sky is still bright for a little bit of time after the Sun goes under the horizon. Even though the Sun is under the horizon, allowing us to see Venus, it’s still not dark enough for us to see Mars. We will only see Mars appearing a little bit higher in the sky when the Sun is more significantly under the horizon, but Mars is still rising as the Sun sets. Again, it just doesn’t look that way.

We’re going to keep pushing forward, out of January and into February for now, but we will push into March as well. I mentioned recently that we are going to get all of the planets in the sky at the same time. All of the planets that are visible to the naked eye, plus Uranus and Neptune, which is nice. We are going to get all of the planets into the sky once we are into late February. It is going to be very tricky to see them all, of course, we’re seeing it A, from here in Ireland and B, from a city. Taking a close look at sunset at around the 24th of February, and Saturn and Mercury will be right next to each other. We can see them kind of moving past each other from the 23rd to the 25th. Mercury will reach its greatest elongation later than that, it actually reaches its greatest elongation in March rather than February, but Mercury and Saturn are very, very close together on the 24th. Mercury will sort of pass Saturn as it goes out to its greatest elongation, so we will see it at its greatest elongation eventually. Unfortunately, we won’t see it at its greatest elongation while we have these other planets in the sky, as Saturn will end up too close to the Sun. It’s very difficult to see, as I say, from here in Ireland, and the sky is just getting dark enough for the other planets to be visible at all.

We will very quickly hop down to the equator, I may do this again in February itself as well. I always assume the equator is higher up the planet than it is. I always thinks it’s somewhere around North Africa or the Caribbean when really the equator is down closer to the center of Africa and the top of South America. It just seems strange for someone living in the Northern hemisphere, it feels like the equator is just down below us, but really it’s quite, quite far away.

Even right on the equator, it is a little bit tricky to see Saturn and Mercury. Any extra light pollution from a city is going to make things a little bit tougher to see as well. Without the light pollution it’s looking a little bit more achievable, they are just about visible. Mercury and Saturn are right above the Sun, with Venus a little bit higher and Jupiter and Mars practically at the zenith from the Equator. Neptune would be down next to Saturn, a little higher but not as high as Venus. Uranus would be up around Jupiter but a little further west, close to the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. These planets are all in the sky together, but they are going to be a little bit difficult to see, apparently no matter where you are. These things are generally easier to see at the equator, but it looks like this one is still going to be a little bit tricky even at the equator. Pushing a little further forward and into March, that is going to bring Mercury to its greatest elongation. We’re not going to have to push very far into March, just up to the 8th, This brings Mercury and Venus very close together, and further from the horizon than Saturn and Mercury, However, Saturn will become impossible to observe, as will Neptune, 4 or 5 planets, depending on if you count Uranus.

From the countryside, of course, it looks beautiful, especially if Venus and Mercury are up until true darkness. Coming back into the city of course gives the slightly more likely view. Chances are you’re going to be seeing the from the city rather than from the countryside, but it’s okay. Mercury, despite how faint Mercury is, it is still visible to the naked eye. The March greatest elongation of Mercury is one of the better times to see Mercury, it’s going to be a little bit more achievable to see Mercury from the city even from Ireland. So we can see Mercury, Venus, Uranus still near the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters, Jupiter, the Moon and Mars on the night of Mercury’s greatest eastern elongation. The Moon and Mars will look very close together, but I don’t think we’re going to get an occultation, certainly not from here in Ireland and likely not at all, but they do get very close together there in March as well.

We will move a little bit further forward in March, up to the night of the Full Moon. On the night of the 13th the Moon will be at 99.9% full, and if we look at the night of the 14th, it looks like that percentage goes down. However the actual date of the Full Moon is being listed as the 14th. As usual, this may simply mean that we’re not seeing it at absolutely 100% full from here in Ireland. In this case however, that’s not what it means, we are seeing it at 100% full here in Ireland, but only if you go out on the morning of the 14th. Of course, for all practical purposes, it will still be a Full Moon on the night of the 14th, just not 100%. Seeing it early in the morning let’s us see it at 100% for here in Ireland. It will be 100% full in the evening for other parts of the world of course. It is also the night of a lunar eclipse, unfortunately, not one we’re going to see in Ireland. We have entered a new eclipse cycle, there are going to be solar and lunar eclipses this year, and as normal, they pretty much come in pairs.

The Moon is going to pass into our shadow for people in North America on the 14th, and about half a month later, roughly, the Moon will come around in front of the Sun and there will be a solar eclipse. Unfortunately, this solar eclipse doesn’t look like it’s going to be particularly visible in Ireland either. Pushing ahead to the New Moon on the 29th, we can see how close together the Moon and the Sun get from here in Ireland. It looks like we’re getting a little bit of a partial eclipse here, only partial. We might see an eclipse obscuration of 39.36%, a little more than a third, not even 50%. This really isn’t that much. Anyone who’s seen a total solar eclipse will know that there’s a huge difference between 99.9% and 100% obscuration. Certainly something like, this down at the 30% mark, isn’t incredibly impressive. For those of you living in North America, you will be on the right continent to travel further north and get a slightly better view. It does seem like from somewhere around Greenland or Iceland is where we may get a better view in Europe, but it looks like Canada is the best location overall, where it will be up to 93%.

For the west coast of Canada, the eclipse will be best visible as the Sun is rising. From a reasonably arbitrary location north of the Great Lakes, the Sun rises at only 78%, though it seems like more. Humans in general, all people, including myself, are very bad at guessing percentages. Moving a little later we get to 88% obscured, and this looks right, but it is very hard to tell at first glance, especially with curves. 99.9% feels like 100% to most people, even though it’s not, and the difference is significant. Sunrise on the 29th of March, if you are on the west of Canada, it should be later in the day further east. That’s pretty much the best time for the eclipse, the number that I saw on the Internet for maximum obscuration was 93%, which is great, but of course that’s only going to happen for a very specific location on Earth. If you are lucky enough to be in the right place, you might get 93%.

We’ve only covered a small portion of the year here. I can tell you that there are more solar and lunar eclipses coming up in the future, there may even be one properly visible from Ireland. Not just a tiny bit of it if you’re wearing eclipse glasses, we may get to see an actual eclipse. A lunar eclipse that is, or at least a partial lunar eclipse, pretty well from here in Ireland, but that’s so much later in the year I’ll have to cover it in a different article.

I hope you enjoyed this slightly closer look at a couple of the things that are coming up, such as Venus at its greatest elongation, Mercury at its greatest elongation, Mars at opposition and all of the planets in the sky for February, as well as these upcoming eclipses. If you did enjoy this piece, please do like it and if you’d like to see more from me this year, then subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.