Bright Planet Notes:

Mercury: Might be possible, but very close to the Sun.

Venus: High up in early evening and getting brighter until it maxes-out around mid-month. Goes into close conjunction with the 1-day old sliver crescent Moon on 2/27 - look for it!

Mars: Too close to the Sun, and continuing to get closer, rising just before sunrise. Won't be viewable until September 2009 in the pre-dawn hours.

Jupiter: Too close to the Sun. Won't be visible until the pre-dawn hours of late April/early May 2009.

Saturn: Beginning to make its appearance in the east during the late evening hours. The rings are edge-on, and will pretty much stay that way until July 2010. Then, it will be another 14 years (2024) before its seen edge-on, again, so look, while the lookin's good!

Uranus: Too close to the Sun - won't become visible, low in the east, until late May/early June 2009.

Neptune: Also too close to the Sun - won't become visible, low in the east, until late early May 2009.

New Moons for 2008: 1/26, 2/25, 3/26, 4/25, 5/24, 6/22, 7/22, 8/20, 9/18, 10/18, 11/16, 12/16.

Meteor showers for 2009 (green text is good)

Four of this year's showers (green text) are favorably absent most or all of the Moon, and offer the best viewing opportunities. Note that even though peak hours may occur during daylight hours, the showers themselves occur for days before and after their peaks, and can still be worth watching, off-peak.

Clear Sky Clock for Chabot Space & Science Center This handy utility predicts what the skies are likely to be like within the next two days. It may take a minute to figure out, but after that, it's quite simple, and very useful.

Direct link for the weekend viewing prospects at Chabot Observatory (usually posted around 5pm on Friday and Saturday evening).

The lunar phase calendar (above) was created with a very cool program called Quick Phase, which generates all kinds of info on the phases of the moon. If you're interested in getting it yourself, click here.

*transit - to cross from the eastern half of the sky to the western half, or vice-versa. When an object transits in an east-to-west direction, it's at its highest elevation above the horizon. This is the best time to view any object, because the higher it is in the sky, the fewer layers of Earth's atmosphere will interfere with, and distort, the image.