Bright Planet Notes:

Mercury: Too close to the Sun and moving closer. Try mid-May.

Venus: Too close to the Sun - won't be visible until late summer as The Evening Star.

Mars: Well past our close pass, and looking pretty dinky in the eyepiece. It does come close to the Moon this month: March 14. Oh well - Saturn looks great, and Jupiter is on its way!

Jupiter: Won't be good to view until mid-July of 2008.

Saturn: High in the southeast around 9:30pm. Perfect for evening viewing. Watch as the weeks progress - by the end of the year (and in the wee hours before sunrise), the rings will be edge-on!

Uranus: Too close to the Sun. Will only start to be viewable around early July.

Neptune: Too close to the Sun. Won't be visible until mid-June, and only then low in the sky to the southeast near Capricornus.

New Moons for 2008: 01/08, 02/06, 03/07, 04/05, 05/05, 06/03, 07/02, 08/01, 08/30, 09/29, 10/28, 11/27, 12/27.

Upcoming Events for January 2008:
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Meteor showers for 2008

Three 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.