Section updated: Feb. 2nd, 2026.
What a compact looking month February will be this year! It’s exactly 4 weeks in 4 rows!
We will start the night with a quick glance at Jupiter at 7 pm in which its moon Io will just be finishing its transit across its surface and Io’s shadow will still be visible upon the giant planet until 7:39 pm that night. There will also be to see M45 the Pleiades open cluster. And can see Orion’s Great Nebula and its “lost jewel” NGC 1980. We’ll look in “Cluster 37” (NGC 2169). Plus, there will be M35 Gemini’s great open cluster.
We hoped to include hosting a Launch Watch Party for NASA’s SLS/Artemis II rocket on Feb. 6th. However, the arctic cold air delayed NASA’s wet dress rehearsal tests, and then a small leak in the umbilical line exceeded their safety limits. So now, the launch is currently scheduled for Friday, March 6th, starting at 8:29 pm, with only a 2 hour launch window. This sounds perfect for a launch party then! Further details will come later. When it does go off, the great rocket will be quite a sight to see go off in the dark night sky. The schedule may further change as the folks at the Kennedy Space Center go through their checks after fueling the rocket and need be, then the launch day will get shifted forwards. At this point, we don’t know exactly when this will be. They are shooting for launches that will have it occur around the 3rd quarter Moon phase. Once launched, they plan for a day’s worth of testing the Orion spacecraft Integrity , which includes rendezvous and docking tests just like they did during the Gemini missions, before making the 4 day trip out to the Moon. This will then be during the Moon’s new phase, giving the astronauts a view of the fully lit far side of the Moon. They’ll whip around the Moon by its gravity, called a “free return trajectory” and head back to Earth for landing. All the while, they’ll run biology tests on themselves and run tests on the spacecraft.
Whenever they do decide to launch, we wish them a productive and safe voyage and return home.
Unfortunately, we are on the wrong side of the planet in order to witness the solar eclipse that will occur before sunrise for us on the 17th. However, that night, we may be able to see the planets Venus and Mercury just after sunset. We’ll have M33 the Triangulum galaxy and the M45 the Pleiades open cluster. And can see Orion’s Great Nebula and try once again to see if we can enter “Cluster 37” or just look in from the outside. Plus, there will be M35 Gemini’s great open cluster and NGC 2392.
While the pale aqua planet Uranus will be seen near the Pleiades. Its spin axis is obliquely tilted over by 98° from the ecliptic plane. Because angular momentum is conserved, its axis always points out in the same direction in space. But now in its 84 year orbit, the planet has traveled around the Sun so that its north pole is oriented back at the Sun and us as well. So, when we observe it, we’ll look right upon its north pole.
Jupiter will be bright and easy to see overhead which will be south of Castor and Pollux in Gemini. For most of the evening, Europa will be hidden behind the planet. It will “come out from behind the planet” from our point of view at 9:08 pm but will still be inside its shadow. From 10:54 – 59 pm, it will emerge from the planet’s shadow, appearing almost a full Jupiter diameter away from the planet.
