It’s mid winter on the Island of Tenerife and although the temperatures down on the coast can be as high as 25 degrees Celsius during the day, at night the weather is colder up at the Caldera at this time of the year. We are experiencing temperatures as low as 6 degrees Celsius so we are advising our guests to wrap up as warm as possible. We are providing extra coats for those that are not dressed as warmly as they could be.
We are seven weeks past the winter solstice, the days are getting longer, the sunsets later and the constellations and objects we can see are changing.
We have four planets we can look at through the telescope at the moment although sadly Saturn is now dropping down in to the evening sky earlier each evening, so soon it will be good bye to the lord of the rings for another season. The past few years the rings have become less visible as Saturn orbits the sun and its view from us becomes less angled. It’s predicted that next year we may not be able to see the rings at all as we will be looking at Saturn without the familiar tilt.
Jupiter is high in the sky and a wonderful sight with its coloured bands clearly visible and its four largest Galilean moons showing clearly.
Venus is slightly higher than Saturn in the sky, toward the West. As Venus moves between the Earth and the Sun, it shows a clear crescent, almost like a miniature quarter moon. This happens when Venus aligns with our line of sight to the sun, so the lit portion, or day side, is mostly turned out of our view. Additionally, because Venus is closer to Earth at this point, it appears much larger than usual.
Mars is moving higher and is clearly visible with the naked eye. It has a distinct orange shade that sets it apart from other stars around it. Mars was closest to the earth on the 12th of January but not as close as it was in 2022 when it measured just over 96 million kilometres away. As Mars gets higher in the night sky we are able to increase the magnification of the telescope to see more details of the red planet.
Moving from West to East the main constellations we can see in the night sky at the moment are; Pegasus which is lower on the horizon sharing one of its stars on the top right hand side with the Andromeda constellation which then guides us towards our nearest and bigger neighbour the Andromeda Galaxy which is 2.5 million light years from us. It’s around two and a half times the size of our galaxy and can be seen with the naked eye on a dark night with no moon if you know where to look. It’s clearly visible with binoculars and very clear looking through one of our large telescopes. It’s hard to imagine that when the light left the Andromeda Galaxy to travel through space to reach us on Earth we as humans didn’t exist as a species for another two million years. A reminder that we are a small insignificant speck in a vast Universe. Above and to the right of Andromeda is Cassiopeia a familiar M shape at this time of the year. Above this slightly further East is Perseus the warrior and saviour of the princess Andromeda in Greek mythology. Ursa minor is next and this contains Polaris or the North Star which is directly above our polar axis. It never changes position in the night sky, well not in our lifetime anyway and its position is constant at 28 degrees above the equator in Tenerife. Rising in the East of Polaris is Ursa major and at this time of the year its barely visible above the horizon with just the last two stars Dubhe and Merak guiding us back to Polaris.
As we head a little more to the East we encounter constellations of the Zodiac; Gemini, Taurus and a very dim Cancer. Now rising later on, Leo with its distinctive main stars Regulus and Algieba part of the lions mane. Every ones favourite winter constellation stands proudly out to the east; Orion the hunter with its familiar Orion’s belt and beautiful gaseous nebula or sword hanging below. The four main stars—Rigel, Saiph, Bellatrix, and Betelgeuse form Orion’s feet and shoulders, creating a familiar shape in the night sky. His shield stretches out in front, while a club extends in an arc from his left shoulder, marked by Betelgeuse. Directly below Orion is Canis Major with its main star and our brightest star in the night sky Sirius; also known as the dog star as it’s in the big dog constellation. Its smaller brother to its left is Canis Minor the little dog contains just two stars, the main one is Procyon and its much dimmer companion Gomeisa.
Tenerife is far enough south to see the second brightest star in the nights sky called Canopus which is in the southern hemisphere constellation of Carina. This star is not visible from northern Europe and barely rises much above the horizon. This creates an unusual phenomenon of the star appearing to twinkle and on closer examination through our telescope shows the star appear as a giant disco ball of colours.
Bright stars low on the horizon appear colourful because their light passes through a much thicker layer of the atmosphere. This acts like a prism, refracting the light into its component wavelengths—from infrared to ultraviolet—creating a wonderful display of colours.
My apologies to any constellations I haven’t mentioned in this blog and the other deepsky objects that I have omitted like the Perseides an open cluster in Taurus and the beautiful double cluster in Perseus but there are so many wonders to behold in the night sky in mount Teide national park and its constantly changing each month so when ever you come to Tenerife there is always something new to show you.
Written by Stephen Phelps
