By Benjamin Jones
Guest Columnist

The dead of winter has arrived, but it is far from dead in the astronomy community. The winter skies offer us many treats such as the great nebula in Orion, a spectacular lunar eclipse, and several interesting comets.

I wanted to provide a bit of an update on Comet Holmes, which surprised the world by increasing half a million times in brightness in just less than 45 hours back in October. Other than setting a new world record for the largest known outburst, Comet Holmes is still much alive and with us in the evening sky. Recently, I went out to the Medina Lake area and was able to see the comet naked eye. Evidently, when the comet had its outburst, it blew off a tremendous amount of dust and small rocks that have engulfed it, thus making it appear in the night sky as a “giant circle” that is larger than the Full Moon. Currently, Holmes is sitting in the constellation Perseus, which is almost directly overhead by nightfall. There is little to no tail on the comet, but it is easy to see naked eye from a dark site like Medina Lake. If you are planning an outing, or want to show the kids a really cool comet that broke all the world records, feel free to shoot me an email and I can send you a link with an easy to use tool to locate the comet.

We are in for a real treat on the night of February 20/21 when the Full Moon will suddenly turn blood red. No, it is not a repeat from the movie Mars Attacks, but should turn some heads as people stare up into the sky. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Full Moon passes directly in the Earth’s shadow, meaning that if you were to stand on the Moon during one of these eclipses, the Earth would completely cover the Sun (I guess you could call it an Earth Eclipse from this perspective). The blood red color comes from the small amount of light that is reflected from the Earth’s atmosphere onto the Moon. The more dust and pollution in the atmosphere, the redder the Moon will be. The excitement begins at 7:43 p.m. on the 20th, leading up to the full eclipse at 9:01 p.m.. Be sure to check it out because it is cool, easy to spot in the sky, and uncommon.

This month, two nice constellations of dogs and lions join the winter night sky. Canis Major, or the big dog is to the bottom left of Orion in the southern sky. Home to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, Canis Major is a wonder of its own. Under dark skies in the hill country, the winter Milky Way can be seen passing through Canis Major and Sirius. At this point you may have already seen Sirius, a bright blue-white star, which is 33 times as bright as our Sun. To easily locate Sirius draw an imaginary line from Orion’s belt to the bottom left until you hit the brightest object in the sky. Legend as it that the symbolism of the dog dates back to the 3rd BC, where the Egyptians would use its rising before sunrise, in mid-July, to signal the flooding of the Nile. The flooding of the Nile brought life and prosperity to the Egyptians who praised Canis Major. Another noteworthy constellation in the mid-winter sky is Leo, the lion. Easily seen in the East by 10:30 p.m., Leo is home to many faint galaxies whose light we see left the galaxy millions of years of ago. A fairly large and bright constellation, Leo is marked by a sickle for its head and a triangle for its end. Identified as a lion in the early Mesopotamia civilizations, Leo was introduced into Greek and Roman mythology as a symbol of fear and courage. In the Roman myth surrounding Hercules, Hercules fought the lion with his bare hands and choked it to death taking the lion’s pelt as a cloak and the lion’s head as a helmet.

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Until next time, happy hunting and dark skies!