The Night Sky This Week
January 27,2021
NORTH AMERICA
Mercury is having an excellent apparition in evening twilight. Mercury is often called “elusive,” but this week it’s easy. Look for it low in the west-southwest about 40 or 50 minutes after sunset. In addition to being nearly as high as it ever gets in twilight (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes), Mercury is also brighter than usual, about magnitude –0.5 all week.
Venus (magnitude –3.9) is finally disappearing into the glow of sunrise. Early in the week, you might try looking for it just above the southeast horizon about 25 minutes before sunup.
Mars (about magnitude +0.3, in Aries) shines pale yellow-orange high in the south in late twilight. It’s still very high in the southwest as late as 8 p.m. It sets in the west around 1 a.m. Mars continues to fade and shrink into the distance. It’s about 8 arcseconds wide in a telescope now and is as gibbous as it gets, 89% sunlit from Earth’s point of view.
Jupiter and Saturn are out of sight behind the glare of the Sun.
Uranus (magnitude 5.7, in Aries) is just a few degrees below Mars in early evening. In binoculars Uranus is a little pinpoint “star.” But with an apparent diameter of 3.6 arcseconds, it’s a tiny, fuzzy ball at high power in even a smallish telescope with sharp optics — during spells of good seeing.
Neptune (magnitude 7.9, in Aquarius) is sinking away low in the west-southwest after dark.
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