SkyEye

The Calendar

The Solar System

The word planet is derived from the Greek word for 'wanderer'. Unlike the background stars, planets seem to move around the sky, keeping mostly to a narrow track called the ecliptic, the path of the Sun across the stars. Dwarf planets and small solar-system bodies, including comets, are not so constrained, often moving far above or below the ecliptic.

Sun Capricornus → Aquarius

The equation of time is at its absolute minimum on 11 February. Local noon as defined by the clock occurs over 14 minutes before the Sun crosses the meridian.

Mercury Capricornus

The smallest planet in the solar system is best seen from the southern hemisphere. It rises ever higher above the eastern horizon before sunrise. Greatest elongation west occurs on 24 February at which time it is descending back towards the Sun. Mercury never rises very high above the horizon for observers in the northern hemisphere.

Venus Aquarius → Pisces

The 'evening star' is rising ever higher above the sunset horizon for viewers in the northern hemisphere but stays stubbornly low when seen from south of the equator.

Mars Aquarius → Pisces

The red planet is found low in the western sky at sunset, setting about mid-evening.

Jupiter Leo → Cancer

At opposition on 6 February, the king of the planets is aloft all night and at its very brightest.

Saturn Scorpius

At west quadrature on 23 February, the interplay of shadows — disc, rings, satellites — in the Saturnian system are at their most pronounced. Saturn rises ever earlier, but still not appearing until after midnight.

Uranus Pisces

This green-coloured ice giant is getting increasingly difficult to see in the evening twilight as it approaches conjunction with the Sun in early April. It is occulted by the Moon on 21 February.

Neptune Aquarius

At solar conjunction on 26 February, the most distant planet in the solar system is unobservable this month.