By Dan Hicks

I commend FM 107’s Dennis Walker for beginning our New Year referencing the Quadrantids, a notable meteor shower in our northern sky, centred on our January 3 predawn (devoid of any moonlight interference this year) with possible intense meteoric activity commencing around 5 MST (astronomical twilight begins at 06:42), perhaps yielding a spellbinding meteoric display with a dazzling ZHR (Zenithal Hourly Rate) of 120 meteors per hour, interspersed with spectacular fireballs.

January brings us other celestial attractions, such as a planetary parade of (east to west) Venus, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars; our meteors and planets are graphically presented in the January Sky and Telescope Sky Tour Podcast (a must-watch item – link below), along with a review of our winter constellations: Orion the hunter – his three-star belt and Betelgeuse; Eridanus – the river; Cetus – the sea monster; star Aldebaran and the Hyades (a line of sight association only); the Pleiades – our Seven Sisters who are actually a thousand stars; and Orion’s dog stars – Sirius and Procyon.

Lead image: For those of you desiring the ultimate fantasy escape from our East Kootenay winter – here is your dream scene! Imagine yourself by the rolling surf of a warm sea, lazing upon the sands of a tropical island, under a sunny sky filled with fantastical flying tag-playing pterosaurs – specifically, piscivore pterosaur Rhamphorhynchidae, equipped with rudder-tails and interlocking forwardly-directed spiked teeth; Jurassic denizens of Europe and Africa. Painting by Sergey Krasovskiy, from his 2025 calendar “The Art of Sergey Krasovskiy – Dinosaurs” (available from pomegranate.com). Images submitted

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