“Make This Valentine's Day Cosmic with a Gift of Stars and Planets”

Scheduled air date: 2006 Feb 06-12

On the night of February 14th—Valentines Day—the closest planet to our Sun, Mercury, and the gas giant planet Uranus may both be seen near the horizon shortly after sunset. You may need a pair of binoculars to see Uranus, which is nearly 2 billion mi./3.1 billion km from Earth!
(Shown about 45 minutes after sunset for mid-northern latitudes.)

Betelgeuse—the brightest red star as seen from Earth—reaches its highest point in the nighttime sky at about 8:15 PM on Valentine's Day. Low in the East at this is the two-days-past-Full Moon, and roughly midway between Betelgeuse and the Moon appears the ringed planet Saturn.
(Shown at about 8:15 PM on the evening of February 14 for mid-northern latitudes.)

Betelgeuse is an extremely large star, pulsating in size between about the equivalent of Mars' orbit, to that of Jupiter's!

If you wish to view illustrations for other episodes, please see our Star Gazer Illustrated directory.

Illustrations on this page were created using TheSky6 Astronomy Software, an advanced desktop planetarium program designed for Windows. Copyright © 1999-2006 by Software Bisque, Inc.