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MORNING SKY

MORNINGEVENING A SUPPLEMENT TO SKY & TELESCOPE

Jan 1 Earth is 91,402,560 miles from the Sun (peri-helion) near midnight

Feb 8 Mars is 0.4° lower left of Mercury

Feb 16 Mercury is 18° east of the Sun

Mar 8 Comet PANSTARRS begins its best two weeks, low in the west at dusk

Apr 25 Partial lunar eclipse, but it is not visible in North America

Apr 27 Saturn is at oppositionMay 9 Hawaiians see a partial

solar eclipse this afternoon; it is annular in a path across northern Australia (morning of the 10th) and the Central Pacifi c

May 28 Jupiter is 1.0° lower left of Venus, with Mercury 3° above

Jun 12 Mercury is 24° east of the SunJun 20 Longest day, 15h 01m at latitude

40° northJun 24 Latest twilight (at 40° N)Jun 27 Latest sunset (at 40° N)Jul 21 Regulus is 1.2° below Venus

tonight and tomorrowAug 26 Neptune is at opposition

tonightSep 22 Fall begins at the equinox, 4:44

p.m. EDTSep 24 Spica is 0.7° below Mercury

(use binoculars)Oct 2 Uranus is at opposition

tonightOct 8 Mercury is 25° east of

the SunOct 31 Venus is 47° east of

the SunDec 4 Earliest end of

evening twilightDec 7 Earliest sunsetDec 21 Shortest day,

9h 20m at lat. 40° N; win-ter begins at the solstice, 12:11 p.m. EST

EVENING SKYLatest

sunrise of the year at

latitude 40° north

Latest onset of morning twilight

Spring begins at the equinox, 7:02 a.m.

EDTMercury is at greatest

elongation, 28° west of the Sun

Earliest sunriseEarliest morning twilight

Summer begins at the solstice, 1:04 a.m. EDT

Earth is 94,508,959 miles from the Sun (aphelion) near 11 a.m. EDTMars is 0.8° upper left of JupiterMercury is at greatest elongation, 20° west of the SunA total solar eclipse occurs in a path across the mid-Atlantic Ocean and central Africa, with a slight partial eclipse visible at sunrise along the eastern coast of North AmericaMercury is at greatest elongation, 19° west of the SunSaturn is 0.7° above Mercury this morning(and also yesterday)On this and the following mornings, look for Comet ISON low in the east-southeast at dawn

Computed by Roger W. Sinnott. © 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC. Printed in USA.

Sky & Telescope90 Sherman St.Cambridge, MA 02140 USA

®

Sk yandTe lescope .com

Skygazer’sAlmanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S

N E A R 4 0 ° N O R T H

40° N40° N

SGA13R

When does the Sun set, and when does twilight end? Which planets are visible? What time does the Moon rise?

Welcome to the Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 — a handy chart that answers these and many other questions for every night of the year. It is plotted for skywatchers near latitude 40° north — in the United States, Mediterranean coun-tries, Japan, and much of China.

For any date, the chart tells the times when astronomical events occur during the night. Dates on the chart run verti-cally from top to bottom. Time of night runs horizontally, from sunset at left to sunrise at right. Find the date you want on the left side of the chart, and read across toward the right to fi nd the times of events. Times are labeled along the chart’s top and bottom.

In exploring the chart you’ll fi nd that its night-to-night patterns off er many insights into the rhythms of the heavens.

The Events of a Single NightTo learn how to use the chart, consider some of the events of one night. We’ll pick January 13, 2013.

First fi nd “January” and “13” at the left edge. This is one of the dates for which a string of fi ne dots crosses the chart horizontally. Each horizontal dot-ted line represents the night from a Sun-day evening to Monday morning. The individual dots are fi ve minutes apart.

Every half hour (six dots), there is a vertical dotted line to aid in reading the hours of night at the chart’s top or bottom. On the vertical lines, one dot is equal to one day.

A sweep of the eye shows that the line for the night of January 13–14 crosses

many slanting event lines. Each event line tells when something happens.

The dotted line for January 13–14 begins at the heavy black curve at left, which represents the time of sunset. Reading up to the top of the chart, we fi nd that sunset on January 13th occurs at 4:57 p.m. Local Mean Time. (All times on the chart are Local Mean Time, which can diff er from your standard clock time. More on this later.)

Moving to the right, we see that the bright star Sirius rises at 6:06 p.m. Evening twilight ends at 6:33, marking the time when the Sun is 18° below the horizon. Six minutes later Mars, very low in the western sky, sets.

At about 7:14 p.m. Polaris, the North Star, is at upper culmination. This is when Polaris stands directly above the north celestial pole (by 41′ or 40′ this year), a good time to check the align-ment of an equatorial telescope.

The Moon sets at 7:36 p.m., and we can tell by its symbol that it has been a thin crescent, low in the western sky.

At 8:13 the Pleiades transit the merid-ian, meaning the famous star cluster is then due south and highest in the sky. Jupiter transits at 8:45, followed by the Great Orion Nebula, M42, at 10:01. Tran-sits of celestial landmarks help indicate when they are best placed for viewing with a telescope and where the constella-tions are during the night.

Running vertically down the mid-night line is a scale of hours. This shows the sidereal time (the right ascension of objects on the meridian) at midnight. On January 13–14 this is 7h 35m. To fi nd the sidereal time at any other time and date on the chart, locate that point and draw a line through it parallel to the white event lines of stars. See where your line inter-sects the sidereal-time scale at midnight.

(A star’s event line enters the top of the chart at the same time of night it leaves the bottom. Sometimes one of these seg-ments is left out to avoid crowding.)

Near the midnight line is a white curve labeled Equation of time weaving narrowly down the chart. If you regard the midnight line as noon for a moment, this curve shows when the Sun crosses the meridian and is due south. On Janu-ary 13th the Sun runs slow, transiting at 12:09 p.m. This variation is caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis and the ellipticity of its orbit.

The ringed planet Saturn rises in the east at 1:40 a.m., and Regulus transits at 2:33. Jupiter, after being visible all night, fi nally sets at 4:02. Then a star we usu-ally associate with a much later season, Antares, rises at 4:29.

The fi rst hint of dawn — the start of morning twilight — comes at 5:45 a.m. Then the brilliant planet Venus rises at 6:13. The Sun fi nally peeks above the horizon at 7:20 a.m. on the morning of January 14th.

Other Charted InformationMany of the year’s chief astronomical events are listed in the chart’s evening and morning margins. Some are marked on the chart itself.

Conjunctions (close pairings) of two planets are indicated on the chart by a symbol on the planets’ event lines. Here, conjunctions are considered to occur when the planets actually appear closest together in the sky (at appulse), not merely when they share the same ecliptic longitude or right ascension.

Opposition of a planet, the date when it is opposite the Sun in the sky and thus visible all night, occurs when its transit line crosses the Equation-of-time line (not the line for midnight). Opposition

Almanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S N E A R 4 0 ° N O R T H

Skygazer’s 40° N40° N

What’s in thesky tonight?

Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 is a supplement to

Sky & Telescope. © 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC.

All rights reserved.

For reprints (item SGA13R, $4.95 each postpaid) or

to order a similar chart for latitude 50° north or 30°

south, contact Sky & Telescope, 90 Sherman St.,

Cambridge, MA 02140, USA; phone 800-253-0245,

fax 617-864-6117. You can

send e-mail to custserv@

SkyandTelescope.com, or

visit our online store at

SkyandTelescope.com.

®

Rising or Setting Corrections

Declination (North or South)

0° 5° 10° 15° 20° 25°

50° 0 7 14 23 32 43

45° 0 3 7 10 14 19

40° 0 0 0 0 0 0

35° 0 3 6 9 12 16

30° 0 5 11 16 23 30

25° 0 8 16 24 32 42

Atlanta +38 Boise +45 Boston –16 Buffalo +15 Chicago –10 Cleveland +27 Dallas +27 Denver 0Detroit +32El Paso +6Helena +28Honolulu +31Houston +21Indianapolis +44Jacksonville +27Kansas City +18

Los Angeles –7Memphis 0Miami +21Minneapolis +13New Orleans 0New York –4Philadelphia +1 Phoenix +28Pittsburgh +20St. Louis +1Salt Lake City +28San Francisco +10Santa Fe +4Seattle +10 Tulsa +24Washington +8

Local Mean Time Corrections

Athens +25Baghdad +3Beijing +14Belgrade –22Cairo –8Istanbul +4Jerusalem –21

Lisbon +36Madrid +75New Delhi +21Rome +10Seoul +32Tehran +4Tokyo –19

is marked there by a symbol, as for Saturn on the night of April 27–28.

Moonrise and moonset can be told apart by whether the round limb — the outside edge — of the Moon symbol faces right (waxing Moon sets) or left (waning Moon rises). Or follow the nearly horizontal row of daily Moon symbols across the chart to fi nd the word Rise or Set. Quarter Moons are indicated by a larger symbol. Full Moon is always a large bright disk whether rising or setting; the circle for new Moon is open. P and A mark dates when the Moon is at perigee and apogee (nearest and farthest from Earth, respectively).

Mercury and Venus never stray far from the twilight bands. Their dates of greatest elongation from the Sun are shown by ◗ symbols on their rising or setting curves. Asterisks mark the dates when Mercury and Venus show their greatest illuminated extent in square arcseconds. For Venus, but not Mercury, it is also the date of the planet’s greatest brilliancy (which occurs on the evening of December 6th this year).

Meteor showers are marked by a star-burst symbol at the date of peak activity and at the time when the shower’s radi-ant is highest in the night sky. This is often just as morning twilight begins.

Julian dates can be found from the numbers just after the month names on the chart’s left. The Julian day, a seven-digit number, is a running count of days beginning with January 1, 4713 BC. Its fi rst four digits this year are 2456, as indicated just off the chart’s upper left margin. To fi nd the last three digits for evenings in January, add 293 to the date. For instance, on the evening of January 13th we have 293 + 13 = 306, so the Julian day is 2,456,306. For North American observers this number applies all night, because the next Julian day always begins at 12:00 Universal Time (6:00 a.m. Central Standard Time).

Time CorrectionsAll events on this Skygazer’s Almanac are plotted for an observer at 90° west longitude and 40° north latitude, near the population center of North America. However, you need not live near Peoria, Illinois, to use the chart. Simple correc-tions will allow you to get times accu-

rate to a couple of minutes anywhere in the world’s north temperate latitudes.

To convert the charted time of an event into your civil (clock) time, the following corrections must be made. They are given in decreasing order of importance:

• daylight-saving time. When this is in eff ect, add one hour to any time obtained from the chart.

• your longitude. The chart gives the Local Mean Time (LMT) of events, which diff ers from ordinary clock time by a number of minutes at most loca-tions. Our civil time zones are standard-ized on particular longitudes. Examples in North America are Eastern Time, 75°W; Central, 90°; Mountain, 105°; and Pacifi c, 120°. If your longitude is very close to one of these (as is true for New Orleans and Denver), luck is with you

and this correction is zero. Otherwise, to get standard time add 4 minutes to times obtained from the chart for each degree of longitude that you are west of your time-zone meridian. Or subtract 4 minutes for each degree you are east of it.

For instance, Washington, DC (longi-tude 77°), is 2° west of the Eastern Time meridian. So at Washington, add 8 min-utes to any time obtained from the chart. The result is Eastern Standard Time.

Find your time adjustment and memorize it; you will use it always. The table below shows the corrections from local to standard time, in minutes, for some major cities.

• rising and setting. Times of rising and setting need correction if your lati-tude diff ers from 40° north. This eff ect depends strongly on a star or planet’s declination. (The declinations of the Sun and planets are given in Sky & Telescope.)

If your site is north of latitude 40°, then an object with a north declination stays above the horizon longer than the chart shows (it rises earlier and sets later), while one with a south declination spends less time above the horizon. At a site south of 40°, the eff ect is just the reverse. Keeping these rules in mind, you can gauge the approximate number of minutes by which to correct a rising or setting time from the table above.

Finally, the Moon’s rapid orbital motion alters lunar rising and setting times slightly if your longitude diff ers from 90° west. The Moon rises and sets about two minutes earlier than the chart shows for each time zone east of Central Time, and two minutes later for each time zone west of Central Time. Euro-pean observers can simply shift each rising or setting Moon symbol leftward a quarter of the way toward the one for the previous night.

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8

A SUPPLEMENT TO SKY & TELESCOPE

MORNING SKYEVENING SKYFeb 8 Mars is 0.3° to

the lower left of Mercury

Feb 16 Mercury attains greatest elongation, 18° east of the Sun

Mar 8 Comet PANSTARRS begins its best two weeks, low in the west at dusk

Apr 25 The Moon is partially eclipsed from 19:52 to 20:23 UT for most of the Eastern Hemisphere, but at greatest eclipse just 2% of the Moon’s diameter is in the umbra

Apr 27 Saturn comes to opposition tonight

May 28 Jupiter is 1.0° lower left of Venus, with Mercury 3° above them

Jun 12 Mercury attains greatest elongation, 24° east of the Sun

Jun 21 Longest day, 16h 22m at latitude 50° NJun 25 Latest sunsetJul 5 Earth is 152,097,426 km from the Sun

(aphelion) near 15h UTJul 22 Regulus is 1.1° below Venus (use binoculars)Aug 26 Neptune comes to opposition tonightSep 22 Fall begins at the equinox, 20:44 UTOct 3 Uranus is at opposition tonightOct 9 Mercury reaches greatest elongation,

25° east of the SunOct 16 Antares is 1.5° lower left of Venus, low in

the southwest at duskNov 1 Venus attains greatest elongation,

47° east of the SunNov 3 A total eclipse of the Sun occurs in a

path across the mid-Atlantic Ocean and central Africa; the east coast of North America sees a partial eclipse just ending at sunrise

Dec 9 Earliest end of evening twilight

Dec 12 Earliest sunsetDec 21 Shortest day of the

year, 8h 04m at latitude 50° north; winter begins at the solstice, 17:11 UT

Jan 2

Jan 3

Mar 20

Apr 1

May 10

May 25

Jun 16Jun 21

Jul 22Jul 30

Nov 18

Nov 26Nov 30

Dec 31

Computed by Roger W. Sinnott. © 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC. Printed in USA.

Sky & Telescope90 Sherman St.Cambridge, MA 02140 USA

MORNINGEVENING

Earth is 147,098,161

km from the Sun (peri-

helion) near 5h UT

Latest onset of morning twilight

Spring begins at the equinox, 11:02 UT

Mercury is at greatest elongation, 28° west of

the SunAn annular eclipse of the Sun

occurs in a path across northern Australia (soon after sunrise) and

the Central Pacifi c, with a partial eclipse visible in Hawaii (afternoon

on the 9th)A penumbral eclipse of the Moon

technically takes place, much too slight to be seen

Earliest sunrise at latitude 50° northSummer begins at the solstice, 5:04 UTMars is 0.8° upper left of JupiterMercury is at greatest elongation, 20° west of the SunMercury is at greatest elongation, 19° west of the SunSaturn is 0.5° above MercuryOn this and the next few mornings, watch for Comet ISON low in the east-southeastern sky shortly before sunrise

Latest sunrise of the year

®

Sk yandTe lescope .com

Skygazer’sAlmanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S

N E A R 5 0 ° N O R T H

50° N50° N

Local Mean Time Corrections

SGA13E

When does the Sun set, and when does twilight end? Which planets are visible? What time does the Moon rise?

Welcome to the Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 — a handy chart that answers these and many other questions for every night of the year. This version is plotted for skywatchers near latitude 50° north — in the United Kingdom, northern Europe, Canada, and Russia.

For any date, the chart tells the times when astronomical events occur during the night. Dates on the chart run verti-cally from top to bottom. Time of night runs horizontally, from sunset at left to sunrise at right. Find the date you want on the left side of the chart, and read across toward the right to fi nd the times of events. Times are labeled along the chart’s top and bottom.

In exploring the chart you’ll fi nd that its night-to-night patterns off er many insights into the rhythms of the heavens.

The Events of a Single NightTo learn how to use the chart, consider the events of one night. We’ll pick Janu-ary 13, 2013.

First fi nd “January” and “13” at the left edge. This is one of the dates for which a string of fi ne dots crosses the chart horizontally. Each horizontal dot-ted line represents the night from a Sun-day evening to Monday morning. The individual dots are fi ve minutes apart.

Every half hour (six dots), there is a vertical dotted line to aid in reading the hours of night at the chart’s top or bottom. On the vertical lines, one dot is equal to one day.

A sweep of the eye shows that the line for the night of January 13–14 crosses

many slanting event lines. Each event line tells when something happens.

The dotted line for January 13–14 begins at the heavy black curve at left, which represents the time of sunset. Reading up to the top of the chart, we fi nd that sunset on January 13th occurs at 4:24 p.m. Local Mean Time. (All times on the chart are Local Mean Time, which can diff er from your standard clock time by many minutes. More on this later.)

Moving to the right, we see that Ura-nus transits the meridian at 4:46 p.m., meaning it is then due south and highest in the sky (during bright twilight). Mars sets at 6:12, so it won’t be visible later tonight. Evening twilight ends at 6:20, marking the time when the Sun is 18°below the horizon. Then at 6:32 the bril-liant star Sirius rises.

At 7:04 p.m. the Moon sets, and we can tell by its symbol that it has been a thin crescent, low in the southwestern sky. At about 7:15 Polaris, the North Star, reaches upper culmination. This is when Polaris stands directly above the north celestial pole (by 41′ or 40′ this year), a good opportunity to check the alignment of an equatorial telescope.

The faint telescopic planet Neptune sets at 7:48, so we can cross it off the observing list. The Pleiades transit the meridian at 8:14, followed by the bright planet Jupiter at 8:46 and the famous Orion Nebula at 10:02. Transits of celes-tial landmarks help indicate where the constellations are throughout the night.

Running vertically down the mid-night line is a scale of hours. This shows the sidereal time (the right ascension of objects on the meridian) at midnight. On January 13–14 this is 7h 34m. To fi nd the sidereal time at any other time and date on the chart, locate the point for the time and date you want, then draw a line through it parallel to the white event

lines of stars. See where your line inter-sects the sidereal-time scale at midnight. (A star’s event line enters the top of the chart at the same time of night it leaves the bottom. Sometimes one of these seg-ments is left out to avoid crowding.)

Near the midnight line is a white curve labeled Equation of time weaving narrowly right and left down the chart. If you regard the midnight line as the previous noon for a moment, this curve shows when the Sun crosses the merid-ian and is due south. On January 13th the Sun runs slow, transiting at 12:09 p.m. This variation is caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis and the ellipticity of its orbit.

The ringed planet Saturn rises at 1:59 a.m. Regulus (in Leo) transits at 2:34, and Jupiter fi nally sets at 4:37. Then a star that we usually associate with later seasons, Antares, rises at 5:16.

The fi rst hint of dawn — the start of morning twilight — comes at 5:57 a.m. Brilliant Venus rises in the east at 6:50, and Saturn is highest in the sky 10 min-

Amsterdam +40 Belfast +24 Berlin +6Bordeaux +62 Bremen +24 Brussels +44 Bucharest +16 Budapest –16Calgary +36 Copenhagen +10 Dublin +25 Geneva +35 Glasgow +16Halifax +14 Hamburg +20 Helsinki +20 Kiev –2 London 0 Lyons +41

Manchester +8Montreal –6Moscow +26Munich +14Oslo +17Ottawa +3Paris +51Prague +2Quebec –15Regina +58Reykjavik +88St. John’s +1Stockholm –12Toronto +18Vancouver +12Vienna –5Warsaw –24Winnipeg +29Zurich +24

Almanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S N E A R 5 0 ° N O R T H

Skygazer’s 50° N50° N

What’s in thesky tonight?

Rising or Setting Corrections

Nor

th L

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utes later. The Sun fi nally peeks above the horizon at 7:53 a.m. on the morning of January 14th.

Other Charted InformationMany of the year’s chief astronomical events are listed in the chart’s evening and morning margins. Some are marked on the chart itself.

Conjunctions (close pairings) of two planets are indicated on the chart by a symbol on the planets’ event lines. Here, conjunctions are considered to occur when the planets actually appear closest together in the sky (at appulse), not merely when they share the same ecliptic longitude or right ascension.

Opposition of a planet, the date when it is opposite the Sun in the sky and thus visible all night, occurs when its transit line crosses the Equation-of-time line (not the line for midnight). Opposition is marked there by a symbol. For instance, Saturn reaches opposition on the night of April 27–28.

Moonrise and moonset can be told apart by whether the round limb — the outside edge — of the Moon symbol faces right (waxing Moon sets) or left (waning Moon rises). Or follow the nearly horizontal row of daily Moon symbols across the chart to fi nd the word Rise or Set. Quarter Moons are indicated by a larger symbol. Full Moon is always a large bright disk whether rising or setting; the circle for new Moon is open. P and A mark dates when the Moon is at perigee and apogee (nearest and farthest from Earth, respectively).

Mercury and Venus never stray far from the twilight bands. Their dates of greatest elongation from the Sun are shown by ◗ symbols on their rising or setting curves. Asterisks mark the dates when Mercury and Venus show their greatest illuminated extent in square arcseconds. This is also when Venus, but not Mercury, is at greatest brilliancy.

Meteor showers are marked by a star-burst symbol at the date of peak activity and the time when the shower’s radiant is highest in the night sky. This is often just as twilight begins before dawn.

Julian dates can be found from the numbers just after the month names on the chart’s left. The Julian day, a seven-digit number, is a running count of days

beginning with January 1, 4713 BC. Its fi rst four digits this year are 2456, as indicated just off the chart’s upper left margin. To fi nd the last three digits for evenings in January, add 293 to the date. For instance, on the evening of Janu-ary 13th we have 293 + 13 = 306, so the Julian day is 2,456,306. For European observers this number applies all night, because the next Julian day always begins at 12:00 Universal Time (noon Greenwich Mean Time).

Time CorrectionsAll events on this Skygazer’s Almanacare plotted for an observer at 0° longi-tude and 50° north latitude, a reason-able compromise for the countries of northern and central Europe. However, you need not be on a boat in the English Channel to use the chart. Simple correc-tions will allow you to get times accurate to a couple of minutes anywhere in the world’s north temperate latitudes.

To convert the charted time of an event into your civil (clock) time, the following corrections must be made. They are given in decreasing order of importance:

• daylight-saving time (or “summer time”). When this is in eff ect, add one hour to any time that you obtain from the chart.

• your longitude. The chart gives the Local Mean Time (LMT) of events, which diff ers from ordinary clock time by a number of minutes at most locations. Our civil time zones are standardized on particular longitudes. Examples in Europe are Greenwich Mean Time (or Universal Time), 0°; Central European Time, 15°E; and East European Time, 30°. If your longitude is very close to one of these (as is true for London), luck is with you

and this correction is zero. Otherwise, to get standard time add 4 minutes to times obtained from the chart for each degree of longitude that you are west of your time-zone meridian. Or subtract 4 minutes for each degree you are east of it. You can look up your longitude on a map.

For instance, Copenhagen (longitude 12.5° east) is 2.5° west of the Central European Time meridian. So at Copen-hagen, add 10 minutes to any time obtained from the chart. The result is Central European Standard Time.

Find your local-time correction and memorize it; you will use it always. In the table below at left are the corrections from local to standard time, in minutes, for some major cities.

• rising and setting. Times of rising and setting need correction if your lati-tude diff ers from 50° north. This eff ect depends strongly on a star or planet’s declination. (The changing declinations of the Sun and planets can be found in each issue of Sky & Telescope.)

If your site is north of latitude 50°, then an object with a north declination stays above the horizon longer than the chart shows (it rises earlier and sets later), while one with a south declination spends less time above the horizon. At a site south of 50°, the eff ect is just the reverse. Keeping these rules in mind, you can gauge the approximate number of minutes by which to correct a rising or setting time from the table at upper left.

Finally, the Moon’s rapid orbital motion alters lunar rising and setting times slightly if your longitude diff ers from 0°. The Moon rises and sets about two minutes earlier than the chart shows for each time zone east of Green-wich Mean Time, and two minutes later for each time zone west of Greenwich Mean Time.

Declination (North or South)

0° 5° 10° 15° 20° 25°

60° 1 11 23 36 53 80

55° 0 5 10 16 23 32

50° 0 0 0 0 0 0

45° 0 4 8 13 18 24

40° 1 8 15 23 32 43

35° 1 10 20 31 44 68

30° 1 12 25 39 54 72

25° 1 15 30 46 64 84

Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 is a supplement to

Sky & Telescope. © 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC.

All rights reserved.

For reprints (item SGA13E, $5.95 each postpaid) or

to order a similar chart for latitude 40° north or 30°

south, contact Sky & Telescope, 90 Sherman St.,

Cambridge, MA 02140, USA; phone +1 617-864-

7360, fax +1 617-864-6117.

Send e-mail to custserv@

SkyandTelescope.com, or

visit our online store at

SkyandTelescope.com.

®

SkyandTelescope.com

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A SUPPLEMENT TO SKY & TELESCOPEMORNINGEVENING

EVENING SKY

Jan 2 Earth is 147,098,161 km from the Sun (perihelion) near 3 p.m. EST

Jan 4 Latest twilight of the year at latitude30° south

Jan 9 Latest sunsetFeb 8 Mars is 0.4° above and right of MercuryFeb 16 Mercury attains greatest elongation,

18° east of the SunMar 20 Fall begins at the equinox,

9:02 p.m. ESTApr 25 The Moon is partially eclipsed from

19:52 to 20:23 UT, which is in the evening for Africa and near dawn on the 26th in Australia, but just 2% of the Moon’s diameter is in the umbra at greatest eclipse

Apr 28 Saturn is at opposition tonightMay 25 A penumbral eclipse of the

Moon technically takes place, much too slight to be seen

May 28 Tonight and tomorrow, Jupiter is 1.1° upper left of Venus with Mercury 3° to the right

Jun 7 Earliest end of evening twilight

Jun 10 Earliest sunsetJun 12 Mercury stands at

greatest elongation, 24° east of the Sun

Jun 21 Shortest day, 10h 13m at latitude 30° south; winter begins at solstice, 3:04 p.m. EST

Jul 22 Regulus is 1.1° upper left of Venus

Aug 26 Neptune comes to opposition

Sep 25 Spica is 0.8° lower left of Mercury (use binoculars)

Oct 3 Uranus is at opposition

Oct 9 Mercury is at greatest elongation, 25° east of the Sun

Nov 1 Venus attains greatest elongation, 47° east of the Sun

Nov 3 A total solar eclipse occurs in a path across the mid-Atlantic Ocean and central Africa

Dec 22 Longest day, 14h 05m at latitude 30° south

MORNING SKY

Apr 1 Mercury is at greatest elongation, 28° west of the Sun

May 10 An annular eclipse of the Sun occurs in a path across northern Australia (soon after sunrise) and the central Pacifi c Ocean, with a partial eclipse visible in Hawaii (afternoon onthe 9th)

Jul 1 Latest sunriseJul 4 Latest onset of morning

twilightJul 6 Earth is 152,097,426 km from

the Sun (aphelion) near1 a.m. EST

Jul 22 Today and tomorrow, Mars is 0.8° to the lower left of Jupiter

Jul 31 Mercury is at greatest elongation, 20° west of the Sun

Sep 23 Spring begins at the equinox, 6:44 a.m. EST

Nov 18 Mercury is at greatest elongation, 19° west of the Sun

Nov 26 Saturn is 0.4° below MercuryDec 3 Earliest sunriseDec 9 Earliest morning twilightDec 22 Summer begins at the solstice,

3:11 a.m. EST

Computed by Roger W. Sinnott.© 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC.

Printed in USA.

Sky & Telescope90 Sherman St.Cambridge, MA 02140 USA

®

Sk yandTe lescope .com

Skygazer’sAlmanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S

N E A R 3 0 ° S O U T H

30° S30° S

SGA13S

What’s in thesky tonight?

When does the Sun set, and when does twilight end? Which planets are visible? What time is moonrise?

Welcome to the Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 — a handy chart that answers these and many other questions for every night of the year. This version is plotted for skywatchers near latitude 30° south — in Australia, southern Africa, and the southern cone of South America.

For any date, the chart tells the times when astronomical events occur during the night. Dates on the chart run verti-cally from top to bottom. Time of night runs horizontally, from sunset at left to sunrise at right. Find the date you want on the left side of the chart, and read across toward the right to fi nd the times of events. Times are labeled along the chart’s top and bottom.

In exploring the chart, you’ll fi nd that its night-to-night patterns off er many insights into the rhythms of the heavens.

The Events of a Single NightTo learn how to use the chart, consider the events of one night. We’ll pick Janu-ary 13, 2013.

First fi nd “January” and “13” at the left edge. This is one of the dates for which a string of fi ne dots crosses the chart horizontally. Each horizontal dot-ted line represents the night from a Sun-day evening to Monday morning. The individual dots are fi ve minutes apart.

Every half hour (six dots), there is a vertical dotted line to aid in reading the hours of night at the chart’s top or bottom. On the vertical lines, one dot is equal to one day.

A sweep of the eye shows that the line for the night of January 13–14 crosses

many slanting event lines. Each event line tells when something happens.

The dotted line for January 13–14 begins at the heavy black curve at left, which represents the time of sunset. Reading up to the top of the chart, we fi nd that sunset on January 13th occurs at 7:05 p.m. Local Mean Time. (All times read from the chart are Local Mean Time, which can diff er from your standard clock time by many minutes. More on this later.)

Moving to the right we see that the Moon sets at 8:01 p.m., its symbol telling us it has been a thin crescent low in the west. At 8:16 the Pleiades transit the meridian, meaning the famous star clus-ter is then highest in the sky. Mars sets at 8:22, so we can cross it off the observ-ing list for later tonight. Evening twilight ends at 8:39, marking the time when the Sun is 18° below the horizon.

The bright planet Jupiter transits at 8:48, so it is well placed for telescopic viewing. But dim Neptune sets at 9:12.

At 9:51 the Large Magellanic Cloud culminates (another way of saying it transits). Then the Orion Nebula, M42, transits at 10:03. The two brightest nighttime stars, Canopus and Sirius, transit at 10:51 and 11:13, respectively. Transit times of celestial landmarks keep us aware of the march of constellations through the night sky.

Running vertically down the mid-night line is a scale of hours. This shows the sidereal time (the right ascension of objects on the meridian) at midnight. On January 13–14 this is 7h 33m. To fi nd the sidereal time at any other time and date on the chart, locate the point for the time and date you want, then draw a line through it parallel to the white event lines of stars. See where your line inter-sects the sidereal-time scale at midnight.

(A star’s event line enters the top of the chart at the same time of night it leaves the bottom. Sometimes one of these seg-ments is left out to avoid crowding, but it can be drawn in.)

Near the midnight line is a white curve labeled Equation of time weaving narrowly right and left down the chart. If you regard the midnight line as the previous noon for a moment, this curve shows when the Sun crosses the merid-ian and is due north. On January 13th the Sun runs slow, transiting at 12:09 p.m. This variation is caused mainly by the tilt of Earth’s axis.

As we enter the wee hours of the morning, the ringed planet Saturn rises at 12:29 a.m. Then Antares, a star we usually associate with later seasons, climbs above the southeastern horizon at 1:47. Jupiter fi nally sets at 1:59.

The fi rst hint of dawn — the start of morning twilight — comes at 3:39 a.m. The brilliant planet Venus rises 12 min-utes later. The Sun fi nally peeks above the horizon at 5:13 a.m. on the morning of January 14th.

Other Charted InformationMany of the year’s chief astronomical events are listed in the chart’s left-hand margin. Some are marked on the chart itself.

Local Mean Time Corrections

Asunción –10Buenos Aires +54Montevideo +45

Rio de Janeiro –7Santiago +43São Paulo +6

Cape Town +46Durban –3Harare –4

Adelaide +16Brisbane –13Canberra +4

Melbourne +20Perth +18Sydney –4

Johannesburg +8Port Elizabeth +18Pretoria +8

Almanac 2013F O R L AT I T U D E S N E A R 3 0 ° S O U T H

Skygazer’s 30° S30° S

Skygazer’s Almanac 2013 is a supplement to

Sky & Telescope. © 2013 Sky & Telescope Media, LLC.

All rights reserved.

For reprints (item SGA13S, $5.95 each postpaid) or

to order a similar chart for north latitude 40° or 50°,

contact Sky & Telescope, 90 Sherman St., Cambridge,

MA 02140, USA; phone +1 617-864-7360, fax +1 617-

864-6117. You can send

e-mail to custserv@

SkyandTelescope.com or

visit our online store at

SkyandTelescope.com.

®

SkyandTelescope.com

Conjunctions (close pairings) of two planets are indicated on the chart by a symbol on the planets’ event lines. Here, conjunctions are considered to occur when the planets actually appear closest together in the sky (at appulse), not merely when they share the same ecliptic longitude or right ascension.

Opposition of a planet, the date when it is opposite the Sun in the sky and thus visible all night, occurs when its transit line crosses the Equation-of-time line (not the line for midnight). Opposition is marked there by a symbol. For instance, Saturn reaches opposition on the night of April 28–29.

Moonrise and moonset can be told apart by whether the round limb — the outside edge — of the Moon symbol faces left (waxing Moon sets) or right (waning Moon rises). Or follow the nearly horizontal row of daily Moon symbols across the chart to fi nd the word Rise or Set. Quarter Moons are indicated by a larger symbol. Full Moon is always a large bright disk whether rising or setting; the circle for new Moon is open. P and A mark dates when the Moon is at perigee and apogee (nearest and farthest from Earth, respectively).

Mercury and Venus never stray far from the twilight bands. Their dates of greatest elongation from the Sun are shown by ◗ symbols on their rising or setting curves. Asterisks mark when Mercury and Venus show their greatest illuminated extent in square arcseconds.

Meteor showers are marked by a star-burst symbol at the date of peak activ-ity and at the time when the shower’s radiant is highest in the night sky. This is often just before morning twilight begins.

Julian dates can be found from the numbers just after the month names on the chart’s left. The Julian day, a seven-digit number, is a running count of days beginning with January 1, 4713 BC. Its fi rst four digits this year are 2456, as indicated just off the chart’s upper left margin. To fi nd the last three digits for days in January, add 293 to the date. For instance, on January 13th we have 293 + 13 = 306, so the Julian day is 2,456,306.

Note that the Julian day doesn’t change to this value until 12:00 Univer-sal Time (UT). In Australia, 12:00 UT

falls during the evening of the same day (at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, EST). Before that time, subtract 1 from the Julian day number just obtained.

Time CorrectionsAll events on this southern version of the Skygazer’s Almanac are plotted for an observer at 135° east longitude and 30°south latitude. However, you need not live near McDouall Peak, South Austra-lia, to use the chart. Simple corrections will allow you to get times accurate to a couple of minutes anywhere in the world’s south temperate latitudes.

To convert the charted time of an event into your civil (clock) time, the following corrections must be made. They are given in decreasing order of importance.

• daylight-saving time (“summer time”). When this is in eff ect, be sure to add one hour to any time obtained from the chart.

• your longitude. The chart gives the Local Mean Time (LMT) of events, which diff ers from ordinary clock time by many minutes at most locations. Our civil time zones are standardized on par-ticular longitudes. Examples in Australia are 150° E for the eastern states (which use Eastern Standard Time, EST), and 142.5° E for the two central states (an odd value that puts the minute hands of their clocks 30 minutes out of joint with most of the rest of the world).

If your longitude is very close to your standard time-zone meridian, luck is with you and your LMT correction is zero. Otherwise, to get standard time add 4 minutes to times obtained from the chart for each degree of longitude that

you are west of your time-zone meridian. Or subtract 4 minutes for each degree you are east of it. You can look up your longitude on a map.

For instance, Melbourne, Australia (longitude 145°), is 5° west of its time-zone meridian (150°). So at Melbourne, add 20 minutes to any time obtained from the chart. The result is standard time.

Find your Local Mean Time correction and memorize it; you will use it always. The table at far left below has the correc-tions, in minutes, for some major cities.

• rising and setting. Times of rising and setting need correction if your lati-tude diff ers from 30° south. This eff ect depends strongly on a star or planet’s declination. (The changing declinations of the Sun and planets can be found in each month’s Sky & Telescope, on the Planetary Almanac page.)

If your site is south of latitude 30° S,then an object with a south declination stays above the horizon longer than the chart shows (it rises earlier and sets later), while one with a north declination spends less time above the horizon. At a site north of 30° S, the eff ect is just the reverse. Keeping these rules in mind, you can gauge the approximate number of minutes by which to correct a rising or setting time from the table above.

Finally, the Moon’s rapid orbital motion alters lunar rising and setting times slightly if your longitude diff ers from 135° E. The Moon rises and sets about two minutes earlier than the chart shows for each time zone east of central Australia, and two minutes later for each time zone west of there. Observers in southern Africa can simply shift the Moon symbol a third of the way to the one for the following date. Observers in South America can shift it about halfway there.

Rising or Setting Corrections

Sout

h La

titud

e

Declination (North or South)

0° 5° 10° 15° 20° 25°

10° 0 8 16 24 33 43

15° 0 6 12 19 26 33

20° 0 4 8 13 18 23

25° 0 2 4 7 9 12

30° 0 0 0 0 0 0

35° 0 2 5 7 10 13

40° 0 5 10 16 22 29

45° 1 8 17 26 37 49

50° 1 12 25 39 54 72