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Your guide to constellations,

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deep-sky objects, planets, and events:

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Tonight’s Sky. Highlights of the January sky:

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The winter sky is filled with brilliant stars.

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An ancient constellation, Auriga was

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pictured as a goat herder by the Greeks and Romans.

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Auriga is a beautiful circlet of jeweled stars,

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gracing the sky overhead.

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Capella, the sixth-brightest star in the sky,

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is a double star.

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The two stars are yellow stars like our own Sun,

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but they are about 10 times larger

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and 50 and 80 times brighter.

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Near Auriga is the large constellation Taurus, the Bull.

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In Greek legend, this group of stars represented Zeus

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in the disguise of a white bull with golden horns.

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His eye is the orange Aldebaran,

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a red-giant star nearing the end of its life.

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The Bull’s V-shaped head is created by the Hyades,

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a beautiful cluster of stars,

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easily seen with the naked eye.

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The Pleiades star cluster lies near the head of the Bull.

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Large and bright, this star cluster is the

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best known in the sky and is often called

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“the Seven Sisters.”

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The unaided eye can see just six or seven stars,

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but the Pleiades cluster contains over 250.

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Binoculars showcase the cluster at its best.

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The stars in this stellar swarm are hot and young.

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They are passing through a dusty cloud that reflects their blue light.

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Saturn and Mercury rise together

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every morning before sunrise.

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Over the course of the month, the two planets shift

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position in the predawn sky.

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They appear to converge in the middle of the month,

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and then slowly swap places.

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With a backyard telescope,

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the two are easy to distinguish.

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Bright Jupiter and reddish Mars

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rise together a few hours before the Sun.

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On the morning of January 6,

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they appear less than half a degree apart,

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and can be seen in the same field of view

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in a backyard telescope.

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The Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on the night

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spanning January 3 and 4.

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Skywatchers who brave the cold might spot up to

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40 meteors per hour.