There’s a picturesque early evening scene at the start of February as the Moon passes dazzling Venus and fading Saturn.
Breathtaking Venus burns brilliant throughout February in the south-west soon after sunset, in the midst of a dazzling apparition. Lying close by at the start of February is Saturn, by contrast a fading force that will be in conjunction with the Sun in March.
At the beginning of February, Venus lies around 30° high 40 minutes after sunset and can be seen against a darkening sky a further 40 minutes or so later, when its still well placed some 25° up. The early evening vista is enhanced by the presence of a young crescent Moon, which lies between Venus and Saturn on 1 February and then lies above Venus on the following evening.
Venus has two notable landmarks for this apparition, reaching its highest altitude in the sky on 7 February, and follows up a week later by appearing at its brightest, a dazzling magnitude –4.64. This is a great chance to observe and image the planet to try to discern elusive dark marking in its thick atmosphere, along with its ever-changing phase as it heads back towards the Sun. Across the month Venus’ crescent slims from 37.5 to 14.8 percent, its apparent diameter growing to 49 arcseconds by the end of February.
Saturn, shining at magnitude +1.1 in Aquarius, is low in the south-west at the start of February. In moments of steady seeing a small telescope shows Saturn’s magnificent rings are tilted by just 2.8°, well on their way to being edge-on, as they will be at the ring-plane crossing on 23 March, which, unfortunately will be out of view.
