Skyscraper members have been invited to an evening of observing at Van Vleck Observatory, located on the campus of Wesleyan University, in Middletown CT, on Saturday, February 13th at 8pm.

You won’t need a finder chart to locate this month’s featured sky object. It’s the first magnitude star β Orionis, better known by its proper name Rigel. Seventh brightest star in the night sky, Rigel dazzles us with a diamond-white color; especially striking when compared with Orion’s other first-magnitude star, the ruddy-hued Betelgeuse.

I always look forward to preparing this column on the meteor shower prospects for the upcoming year. Prior to conducting my research on these annual shooting star displays I usually have no clue as to what the basic observing conditions will be, such as Moon phase and time of peak activity. Only after I have consulted up to six sources of information can I report to you if the new year will be like that old Wide World of Sports opening: “the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.”

It’s been two years since I’ve written about our planetary neighbor Mars. Why? As it is with most things astronomical, events in our solar system occur in a cyclic manner. Earth and Mars have a close encounter every 26 months. During the last few months the Earth has been catching up to Mars in our respective orbits. Back on January 27 these two planets approached each other to within 61,721,726 miles at their closest. That distance is still quite large, considering back on August 27, 2003, the Earth and Mars were only 34,646,418 miles apart. Unfortunately not all Mars close encounters are favorable ones. That fact is due to the eccentricity of Mars’ elliptical orbit and its distance from the Sun.