Derekscope

From 8pm, a few hours later till 1am on early morning of 10th January, the Moon occults several stars in the Seven Sisters star cluster (known as Messier 45 or The Pleiades).

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Planning to watch this celestial event for anyone ~ make sure to find Saturn and Venus will be forming a rare conjunction on Friday 17th January, during this event this month, the two planets will appear remarkably close in the night skies.

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The Lunar X and V are not lasting lunar features which are visible on the lunar surface for about 4 hours.

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Name of craters Ukert (marked V) and Blanchinus (marked X) stood out, reflecting sunlight in a pattern asterism resembling letters of the alphabet.
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This photo of the First Quarter Moon shows the positions of the Lunar V (top), and the Lunar X (bottom) ~ the best time to observe these two claire-obscure effects is when the Moon is seven days old.

BSL Version

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(Next event : Wednesday 5th February 2025 – 7:30am)

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Neptune will be visible in the night sky, but spotting it will require binoculars or a telescope ~ Neptune is quite faint and not visible to the naked eye.

BSL Version

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As evening twilight darkened on Friday 3rd January, Venus and the moon were visible to the naked eye in the south-west night sky.

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Great opportunity, capturing Io’s shadow on Jupiter can be remarkable photography.

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Occultation of Saturn

The Moon will pass in front of Saturn, creating a lunar occultation visible from the United Kingdom.

The occultation will be visible from Milton Keynes ~ it will begin with the disappearance of Saturn behind the Moon at 17:16 / 5.16pm, and its reappearance will be visible at 18:14 / 6.14pm.

BSL Version

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On Friday 3rd, the pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.

BSL Version

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