For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2020-02-sky
On the first Saturday of every month we post educational skywatching notes for the homeschool month ahead. Here’s the monthly northern hemisphere night-sky review for February 2020 from the Hubble Space Telescope’s website — it features, in a timely fashion, Orion, the namesake of our current term; Betelgeuse, our Great Star of the month; and Sirius, our Great Star for next month. (See how well we keep you tuned into the universe?) 😊
Another great monthly night-sky review is available from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. As of the time of this post, the February “What’s Up” video hasn’t been put online yet, but it should be available shortly on the JPL YouTube channel:
- ➢ Videos from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (updated regularly)
One of the easiest astronomical exercises you and your students can do each month is print out your own free copy of the current two-page Evening Sky Map and monthly sky calendar available from skymaps.com:
- ➢ Evening Sky Maps – Northern Hemisphere Edition (updated monthly)
Each map includes a constellation chart for the month as well as a schedule of upcoming astronomical events. (Monthly maps for the southern hemisphere and the equatorial regions are also available.)
The best stargazing nights in February will be toward the beginning and especially the end of the month: the moon will be new (and the sky darkest) on the 23rd. As always, you can look up the moon’s phases in your River Houses almanac (riverhouses.org/books) and also at the excellent timeanddate.com website.
February is the last month of Orion Term, the second of the four terms (quarters) that make up the River Houses year. Our Great Star for the month of February is Betelgeuse (alpha Orionis), as noted above — we’ll be writing about it next week. Print your own River Houses Star Calendar (riverhouses.org/calendars) and follow along with us through the year as we learn about twelve of the high lights of the northern hemisphere night sky. 🌟
What celestial observations will you and your students be making in your homeschool this month? 😊
❡ All the star-sown sky: Teaching your students to recognize the constellations is one of the simplest and most enduring gifts you can give them. Our recommended backyard star guide and homeschool world atlas (riverhouses.org/books) both contain charts of the constellations that will help you learn your way around the heavens. Find a dark-sky spot near you this month and spend some quality homeschool time with your students beneath the starry vault. ✨
❡ The starry archipelagoes: For a great weekly astronomical essay, perfect for older homeschoolers, pay a visit to “The Sky This Week” from the U.S. Naval Observatory. These well-written pages, posted each Tuesday, usually focus on one or two special astronomical events or phenomena. If you have high school astronomy students, have them read these pages aloud to you each week, or ask them to study them and then narrate a summary back to you. 🌌
❡ Watchers of the skies: This is one of our regular Homeschool Astronomy posts. Add your name to our free River Houses mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox every week. 🔭
