Bob Mizon MBE, of Wessex Astronomical Society, reveals February's constellations and starry highlights and when to see this month's Storm Moon
Look above sparkling Sirius, the night sky’s brightest beacon, to locate Orion and the ageing red giant Betelgeuse and, at the far side of Orion’s rectangle, steely-blue Rigel. Above and to the right of Orion charges Taurus the Sky-Bull. Its chief star is Aldebaran, another red giant.
Canis Minor and Canis Major, Orion the Hunter’s two dogs, follow him across the southern sky and due south at 9.30pm mid-month.
The Great Bear (Ursa Major) is climbing away from the tree-line in the north, its two Pointer stars Merak and Dubhe indicating the position of the motionless Pole Star.
Binoculars will reveal superb star fields in the region of the constellations of Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Vertically above this month, at the zenith, see the polygonal constellation of Auriga the Charioteer, carrying the brilliant yellow star Capella (the Goat Star) and the little triangle of the Haedi (Kids) on his shoulder.
Leo the Lion prowls in the east, with its distinctive Sickle asterism resembling a reversed question mark. On the 16th Leo plays host to the high Storm Moon of February.
Jupiter, in Aquarius, sets in the south-west to the right of a thin crescent Moon on the 3rd and 4th, thereafter February’s night sky is devoid of planets. Venus rises in the east at around 5.30am at the beginning of the month, and by the end sits above Mars, very low in the morning twilight.
There are no annual meteor displays in February, but patient observers will still be able spot sporadics, free-ranging meteoroids belonging to no particular stream, which occasionally blaze across the night sky as they live out the last moments of their enormously long journeys and fall though the Earth’s atmosphere.
Click here to find out about February's Dark Skies Festival in Dorset
Local astronomy events
February 1: Anglo-Saxon Astronomy talk by Martin Lunn at Wessex Astronomical Society, 7.45pm, Allendale Centre, Wimborne wessex-astro.org.uk
February 11: The Life and Times of a Theoretical Astrophysicist talk by Nick Higginbottom at Weymouth Astronomy Club, 7.30 pm, St Aldhelm’s Church Centre, Spa Road weymouthastronomy.co.uk
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