Night Sky Charts by Katrina Leather and Edwin Rod
Stardate is happening this month from the 19-23rd of Jan I have set the night sky charts for the date and time of stardate.
The charts show the New Zealand night sky from latitude 40 south on 20th January 2012 at 10pm . Apart from the moon, these positions will vary little in the following weeks.
For a full list of objects magnitude, co-ordinates and other data for the objects listed below, just email
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it will be sent to you as a txt file.
Evening
Venus sets just after the sun but will move into twilight more and more over the coming months and will be the bright object near thew western horizon in the evening. Saturn can be seen as the bright object in the Western sky after dark. It sets at 8pm. Uranus rises at 7.30pm to the east of the great square of Pegasus, and Neptune and Pluto are strung accross the ecliptic as we trace it from east to west. Neptune in Aquarius and Pluto below Saggitarius. Jupiter rises in the east at 10.30pm.
Other evening objects:
M7 an open cluster in Scorpius, Comet Garradd (very faint at mag 8.1), IC 4665 an open cluster in Ophiuchus, the Lagoon Nebula (M8) in Saggitarius, the Saggitarius Star Cloud (M24), the open cluster IC 4756 in Serpens, Brocchi's Cluster (Collinder 399) in Vulpecula, Stock 1 open cluster in Vulpecula, North America Nebula (NGC7000) in Cygnus - which is an emission Nebula that resembles the continetn of North America.
Morning
Jupiter remains bright in the sky. Mars rises in the east about 4.30am. Mercury is not visible until just before sunrise.
Some of the objects listed in the evening sky will still be visible depending on the constellation.
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10pm 20th January 2012, Looking North
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10pm 20th January 2012, Looking South

10pm 20th January 2012, Looking East

10pm 20th January 2012, Looking West

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