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**The Trail Camera workshop scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, January 24, has had to be postponed due to extreme wind chill in the forecast.
This event will be rescheduled, probably by mid February, and will be reposted.
**Jane LeBlanc had a sharp-shinned hawk return to her St. Martins yard in a light snow. It stayed for most of the morning. Jane took photos out the window, then outside as it didn't seem to mind. Then, when it flew closer to the house, she went out again and it sat as she stood practically underneath it -- then the dog needed to go out, and it flew away.
**This
Week’s Sky at a Glance, 2026 January 24 – January 31
The most inconspicuous of the zodiac constellations is faint Cancer the Crab,
which is nestled between Gemini and Leo. In mythology, the crab was sent by the
goddess queen Hera to distract Hercules while he was battling the Hydra. The
crab was no match for the strongman’s stomp. Ancient Egyptians saw it as their
sacred dung beetle, the scarab. In the first millennium BCE the Sun was
in Cancer at the summer solstice, the time when it halts its northward motion
and slowly starts heading south. This back and forth motion of the rising and
setting Sun on the horizon was perhaps reminiscent of a crab sidling on a
beach. The summer Sun is now situated in Taurus near the constellation border
with Gemini.
Cancer is recognized by a trapezoid of dim naked eye stars as the crab’s body,
with a couple of other stars representing the claws. The four stars were also
seen as a manger flanked by a pair of donkeys, Asellus Borealis and Asellus
Australis. On a clear dark night we can see a hazy patch of hay within the
manger, and binoculars reveal it as a beautiful star cluster called the
Beehive, Praesepe or M44. Being near the ecliptic, the planets often pass
through or near this cluster, masquerading as a bright guest star. The Beehive
was once used to forecast storms, for if it could not be seen it was hidden by
light clouds at the front of a weather system. Binoculars can reveal another
star cluster, number 67 on the Messier list of fuzzy non-comets, less than a fist-width
south of M44.
This Week in the Solar System
Saturday’s sunrise in Moncton is at 7:50 and sunset will occur at 5:12, giving
9 hours, 22 minutes of daylight (7:52 and 5:20 in Saint John). Next Saturday
the Sun will rise at 7:42 and set at 5:22, giving 9 hours, 40 minutes of
daylight (7:45 and 5:30 in Saint John).
The Moon
is at first quarter on Monday, close to the Pleiades Tuesday and above Jupiter
next Friday. Saturn is in the southwest after evening twilight this weekend,
setting before 10 pm. Jupiter is at about the same altitude in the east at that
time among the stars of Gemini. On Monday at 9:04 pm telescope users might see Jupiter’s
moon Callisto reappear from transiting the planet at the same time that its
shadow begins a transit on the other side, with the Red Spot midway across the
planet. Venus, Mars and Mercury are out of sight on the far side if the Sun.
Tune in to
the Sunday Night Astronomy Show at 8 pm on the YouTube channel and Facebook
page of Astronomy by the Bay.
Questions?
Contact Curt Nason at nasonc@nbnet.nb.ca.
Nelson
Poirier
Nature
Moncton
