Thought for the Month:
Never believe anything until it's officially denied.
Claud Cockburn

The SunTree Traveler

What’s Happening in February?

Valentine's Day at Elephant Butte

We are invited back to Elephant Butte for a Pre- Valentine's Day candy choke-a-thon and potluck meal.

This event will once again be a potluck get together.

If you are planning to attend please give SunTree a call (575) 522 6284 (prepare to leave a message if there is nobody available to answer) or an e-mail at information@suntree.net. Let us know how many of you to expect, when you plan to arrive, if you will need to stay overnight and what dish you plan to bring for the potluck meal (does it need to be heated/cooled/frozen/micro-waved?).

We will be sure that the hosts of this event will get your information (sorry, we do not post private information about our members on the website). 

I am sure that all of you have read the article in the current issue of N Magazine about the annual Grand Canyon float trip which has become a standard event on the Arizona Wildflowers calendar. If you are like me, you have all thought that this will be the year that I will finally take this wonderful adventure with a compatible bunch of nudists.

Sorry. Once again, you are too late. All of the slots for this year’s float have been reserved. Not only that, the slots for 2012 are already filling up fast.

Interested parties need to act quickly if they want to get in on that one. Is 2012 too far in advance for you to plan? Then, I guess that 2013 would be out of the question.

Celestial News for February

Evening: We will not see much of Mars this month because he is hovering close by the Sun. I suppose that a god of war needs to re-arm sometimes, but Mars is taking this to a ridiculous level. He is planning to hang by the big hot guy from now all of the way to December. That does not mean that he will be invisible that whole time, but after February, he will be very dim.

We have had a good long and entertaining few months watching Jupiter dominating the evening sky. He is still up there, but he is dropping down closer to the horizon at nightfall. He is still very bright and conspicuous though. You can see him on 6 February conversing with the Moon.

You probably remember that shy Saturn has been hiding those magnificent rings over the past year. They are now starting to move so that they are not so edgewise now. Saturn will rise in the east at around 10:30 in the evening in early February, but by the end of the month, it will rise two hours earlier at around 8:30. Not only will Saturn be getting into our evening sky earlier as the month goes on, it will also be getting brighter through the month. In early February, Saturn will glow at magnitude 0.7 and at the end will have brightened to magnitude 0.5. Around 20 February, the Moon will pay Saturn a visit. It will be the bright spot just to the left of the Moon.

I mentioned the rings are moving to a less edgewise position, but you probably will not be able to see them without a good telescope (at least 30x magnification) to see those rings at this time.

As to some of our favorite non-planet denizens of the evening sky, Orion is spectacularly there. In the early part of the month, he will be doing his hunting in the sky directly south of the viewer. He will show up around 8 in the evening early in the month, but by the end of the month, he will show up during the last stages of evening twilight. If you look at those three bright stars that make up Orion’s belt, they point down and to your (the observer’s) left to a very bright star (about the distance of the width of your fist held at arm’s length). That is Orion’s faithful dog Sirius (appropriately in the constellation of Canis Major).

Morning: Not much is happening in the morning sky this month. Venus is still glowing brightly in proud observance of her role as morning “star”. Early in the month Venus will be plainly visible on the right of cute little Pluto the discredited former planet. You need a REAL telescope to see poor little Pluto. Frustrated by Pluto’s futile attempt to draw attention to her role as a morning sky celebrity, Venus moves on the final day of the month over to the left of the crescent Moon. She definitely puts the Moon to shame with her brightness. Don’t tell her that I told you this, but by the end of February, Venus is starting to sag lower in the sky and is noticeably losing some of her “dazzle”.