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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

ASTRONOMICAL EVENTS FOR FEBRUARY 2009

ASTRONOMICAL EVENTS FOR FEBRUARY 2009

FEBRUARY 3: First Quarter Moon

FEBRUARY 9: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, start (local):6:10pm. End (local): 10:06pm.

FEBRUARY 9: Full Moon

FEBRUARY 11: Waning Gibbous Moon is 6 deg. SE of Saturn

FEBRUARY 12: Neptune at conjunction

FEBRUARY 14: Moon 4.5 deg. SW of Spica (around 3am)

FEBRUARY 14: Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation (26 deg. from the Sun)

FEBRUARY 17: Last Quarter moon

FEBRUARY 18: Asteroid Ceres (mag. 6.5) is just 11’ from 64 Leonis (mag.6.5).

FEBRUARY 18: Moon (23 days old) SE of Antares

FEBRUARY 18: Jupiter and Mars are just 35’ apart at 6:40am. Very low in east.

FEBRUARY 23: A thin Crescent Moon, Jupiter, Mercury and Mars form a compact grouping within 5 degrees at dawn around 6:30am. All will be fit within a binocular field of view.

FEBRUARY 24: Jupiter and Mercury are just 38’ apart at 6:30am.

FEBRUARY 26: Asteroid Ceres is at near opposition. (Distance: 1.583 A.U.; Magnitude: 6.3). Find it about 5 deg. NW of Delta Leonis.

FEBRUARY 28: Mars and Mercury are 1.5 deg. apart at 6:30am. They will be just 35’ apart on March 2nd.

COMET LULIN: Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3) will be the most splendor sight for observers. It will pursue its way along the ecliptic. This cosmic interloper will be 2.7 degrees NE of Spica on 16 February at 4:00am. It will pass 2 degrees SW of Saturn on February 23 at 11pm. Then it will pass just 1 degree South of Regulus on 27th February.

That's all for this month.

- Scientist Fenil

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