All information presented here is taken from my 44 page book NightScenes .
Nightscenes 2012 is available from our online shop
Click on the monthly image to get a larger high resolution view of the night sky set for 53° N (Horncastle, England) but is usable for the UK and Eire. All charts are set for the 1st of the month at 22:00 GMT (10pm), 23:00 BST during Summer Time and can be used on the other dates and times shown in each corner of the chart.
February 2012
The Moon's Phases during the month:
The Moon passes the visible brighter planets/stars on the following dates:
Evenings: M45 1st & 28th / Aldebaran 2nd & 29th / Regulus 8th / Mars 9th / Mercury 22nd & 23rd / Venus 25th / Jupiter 26th
Mornings: Spica & Saturn 12th & 13th /Dschubba 15th / M8 & M20 17th / Teaspoon 18th
The Solar System -
Jupiter and Venus remain the main bright evening planets but low down in the evenings Mercury also makes an appearance towards the last week of the month. Neptune dives into the evening twilight and is in conjunction with the Sun on the 19th and so will not visible. Vesta, Uranus and Ceres are also getting lower in the west and by months end are harder to view. Venus helps out with locating Uranus by passing close above it on the 9th. Mars is improving now and by the end of the month it is rising in evening twilight over near Leo’s tail. Saturn remains an early morning planet and lies near Spica in Virgo. The moon lies very close to the naked eye star Delta Scorpii, Dschubba around 5am on the 15th for an interesting close encounter. February is unusual as, in spite of having an extra day in the month, there will be no First Quarter Moon! Finally Comet Garradd should still be viewable in the early hours of the morning and on the 3rd Garradd will lie close to the Globular Cluster M92 in Hercules.
The visible planets & small worlds -
For most charts see below for their respective hyperlinks. Charts in the text can be clicked to give a larger view.
The 
moon lies just below the star cluster M45, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters on the
evening of the 1st as shown here at left so using binoculars centre on the moon then
drift above it until the cluster comes into view. Venus remains a stunning sight
in the evening sky over in the west and for a short while guides us to fainter and
more distant Uranus as shown at right. On Feb 9th they are closest but their brightness
couldn’t be more different as Venus shines at -
Look o
ut for the crescent moon close to Venus and Epsilon (e) Psc on the 25th as
shown at left as it should prove a stunning sight in the early evening. Jupiter is
also a grand sight over in Aries but is slightly fainter at mag -
Our moon lies very close to Delta Scorpii, Dschubba (left) around 5am on the 15th
which is worthy of a look. At that time and phase the Moon should be easy to spot!
Mid month Mars is rising just before 8pm and at this time forms a triangle with Denebola
(b) and Chertan (q) in Leo. Mars is retrograding and steadily brightening as it heads
towards next months opposition but even now it is well placed to view. The chart
(right) is set from Dec 31st 2011 and shows the red planets position every four
days until March 16th.
Meanwhile rising just before midnight around mid month is the ringed planet Saturn which lies just left of the bright star Spica in Virgo (left).
Comet Garradd (morning) should still visible in binoculars so check out the comet link below. It passes the globular cluster M92 on the 3rd so worth pointing your binoculars or telescope towards them that morning a chart is on the comet page showing the comets motion past the globular.
Mercury springs into the evening sky for a great showing from Feb 18th to March 16th
as shown below. Look around half hour after sunset for a lonely star low down in
the western twilight. A difficult and thin crescent moon lies to the right of Mercury
on the 22nd and then high above it the next evening. Mercury is at its brightest
at the start of the apparition and changes from mag -
Occultation's and close encounters between the Moon and deep sky objects
Meteor Showers
There are no major meteor showers this month but do keep a look out for any sporadic ones as they can happen at any time and come from any direction!
The Stars
February's early evening sky still finds the square of Pegasus, the winged
horse, riding over in the south and along with it Andromeda, the chained maiden.
By the time of our monthly chart (10pm) they lie low setting in the West. Pegasus
is actually upside down with the lower right hand trail of stars representing its
head. The Square seems at first glance to the naked eye quite lacking in stars but
under dark skies there are plenty to spot if you care to take the time to seek them
out. I’ve counted around 24 stars inside the Square, not counting the outer four
corner stars and the more you can count then it is a good indication that the better
and darker are the sky conditions. 
The oddities here though are that it isn’t really
a square but more a rectangle and the upper left star is actually part of Andromeda
(Alpha, a, And, Alpheratz).
Pegasus has one bright Messier deep sky object, M15 a mag 6.2 globular 
cluster
(right) which can be spotted in binoculars. Its stars become resolvable and a fine
sight in medium to large telescopes.
Now look towards Eta (h) Pegasi. Small to medium telescopes will pick out the smudge that is the galaxy NGC 7331 (mag 9.5) which forms a triangle with Eta (h) and Pi (p) Pegasi. It is tilted to our line of sight as shown in my picture at left taken with my 250mm Newtonian reflector.
For those with large scopes move the view around 1/2 a degree to the SW
for a glimpse of the small cluster of galaxies known as Stephan’s Quintet. NGC 7320
is the brightest member at mag 12.6 although it is thought that it is not a true
member of the group at all but closer. 
The rest are fainter than mag 13. My poor
picture of them taken in 2010 does at least show all five of them though so see how
many you can spot with your telescopes. Use the finder chart at left to help you
locate both NGC 7331 and from it Stephan’s Quintet.
Meanwhile Andromeda has one of the jewels of the night sky which really
needs a wide field of view to really get it all in, this is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.
The central glow of its bulge can be seen with the naked eye under dark skies and
with 7x40 binoculars the 3 degree disk can be viewed as well. When you spt this with
the naked eye jus remember that you are looking at a galaxy that is ‘only’ 2.5 million
light years away! 
The wide field view at left shows Beta Andromedae the orange star
towards the bottom with the galaxy just above centre. Due to its size when you view
through a telescope it can at first be a bit of a let down. The key is to slowly
sweep along the disk and also make sure you are properly dark adapted so you can
pick out subtle detail in the disk (right). You can also spot the two companions,
M32 and the slightly fainter M110 . 10 x50 bins can just show both if you have them
on a tripod for stability.
If you have a medium to large scope then look for NGC 206 (left), a star cloud within
the disk of the galaxy. It forms a triangle with the central nucleus of M31 and M32
as shown in the enlargement of the right hand main galaxy image. The red dotted circles
show how to find it and whilst you are looking take note of the dark lanes in the
spiral arms especially when they are close to the main bulge. There is plenty more
to discover in Andromeda but for now enjoy this brief tour.
Meanwhile 
Taurus the Bull lies high on our chart with the ‘V’ shaped Hyades star
cluster and its red eye of the bull, Aldebaran glaring down at Orion the Hunter.
Above right of the Hyades is the wonder star cluster M45, Seven Sisters or Pleiades
star cluster. See how many you can count with the naked eye as the ancients saw seven
(hence the popular name) whilst keen eyed observers have seen many more. The authors
record is 11 but that was on an amazingly dark and clear night! The Pleiades has
a faint nebulosity around it as shown in my picture here at right but only the brightest
patch below the lower left star is visible under good conditions with a telescope.
Clear skies and happy sky watching.
The UK & Ireland Night Sky for 2012AD
Webmaster © Paul L Money /2012
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