What's in the Sky This Month? February 2025

In this episode of What's in the Sky this Month, Teagan reviews some of the beautiful celestial objects you can see in the month of February!


NGC 2392

Image credit: NASA

NGC 2392 - The Clown Face Nebula

Planetary nebulae can be small, faint, and generally hard to find, but every season has one that stands out from the crowd. In the winter, that honor belongs to NGC 2392, the Clown Face Nebula, which can be found in the constellation Gemini, just two and a quarter degrees from the star Wasat.

It’s bright enough to be spotted with binoculars, but the chances are it will only appear as a slightly fuzzy star. A small telescope at low power will show it as a tiny, hazy circular patch, with a bluish tint and its central star easily visible. Larger scopes will show a darker, outer ring, while staring at the central star and then glancing away will cause the nebula to disappear and then reappear again!

OUR NEAREST NEIGHBORS

Neptune is too close to the Sun to be visible this month, and Saturn is now sinking into the evening twilight, which makes it too low to be worth observing telescopically. However, Mercury returns to the evening sky for the last ten days and rapidly catches up to the ringed planet. Try your luck about 15 minutes after sunset on the 24th and 25th, when roughly a degree and a half will separate the pair. They’ll appear very low in the west, directly below Venus, which remains visible for about 3 hours after sunset. A crescent Moon appears within the same binocular field of view as Venus on the 1st, and after turning new, re-appears between Mercury and Saturn on the 28th. There’s still time if you want to observe Uranus, with the planet remaining high above the western horizon for much of the evening. Jupiter remains within the same 10x50 binocular field of view as Aldebaran in Taurus, with the pair joined by the Moon on the 6th. The Moon then moves on and appears between Mars and Pollux in Gemini on the 9th. There’s a full Snow Moon in Leo on the 12th, and then the Moon turns new on the 27th.

Pleiades

Image credit: Davide De Martin & the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator

The Moon Occults the Pleiades

If you live in the western half of North America, there’s an opportunity to see the Moon pass in front of (or, occult) the Pleiades. The first stars will disappear around 11:15 pm PT on the 5th, but you’ll need to ensure the illuminated portion of the Moon’s disc is out of the field of view to see any of the cluster’s stars.

Messier 50

Image credit: Jim Mazur


Messier 50

A cluster that shows fairly well from even light-polluted skies, M50 appears as a large group of stars with a low magnification but is best seen with a magnification of around 50x. Look for a triangular formation of stars in the middle.

Messier 67

Image credit: Jim Mazur

Messier 67

M67 is one of the oldest known open star clusters and is easily found within the same 10x50 binocular field of view as Alpha Cancri, aka Acubens. A low magnification of 35x shows a tight, condensed cluster with a coppery star on its northeastern edge.

Tegmine

Image credit: The Sky Live

Zeta Cancri - Tegmine

A neat multiple star for telescopes, a low magnification of 30x will show a gold-white star with a wide, faint blue companion. Increase the magnification to 100x to split the primary into two stars of almost equal brightness, with one showing a pale blue or violet hue.

STELLAR CONCEPTS

Occultation: An occultation occurs when one object moves in front of another, thereby hiding (occulting) it from view. While it can apply to any celestial object in motion, it most frequently involves the Moon passing in front of a planet, star, or deep sky object.