{"id":240233,"date":"2026-01-11T23:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/240233\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T23:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:57:13","slug":"psyche-moves-north-of-aldebaran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/240233\/","title":{"rendered":"Psyche moves north of Aldebaran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tAsteroid 16 Psyche is easy to find this evening as it moves a less than two degrees north of Aldebaran in Taurus the Bull. \t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"463\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ASY-SM0126_02.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"The path of asteroid 16 Psyche in January 2026\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe strange, metallic asteroid Psyche arcs above the Bull\u2019s eye, Aldebaran, this month. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-january-9-to-16-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">January 10: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-saturday-january-10-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jupiter reaches opposition<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The strange, metallic asteroid 16 Psyche is moving through Taurus the Bull this month. Tonight it is particularly easy to find as it slides north of the bright star Aldebaran.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cataloged as Alpha Tauri, red giant Aldebaran shines at an easy-to-spot magnitude of 0.9, often envisioned as the Bull\u2019s bright eye. By 7 P.M. local time, this star stands 50\u00b0 high in the east, following the Pleiades star cluster (M45) up into the sky and located above the Hunter Orion and his familiar belt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Center binoculars or a low-power telescope on Aldebaran, then scan just 1.4\u00b0 due north to find magnitude 10.5 Psyche. (At lower powers or in binoculars, you may be able to spot both star and asteroid in the same field of view.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Psyche is currently moving westward (retrograde) against the background stars; later this month, however, it will reach a stationary point and turn around, then moving eastward (prograde) across the sky. It will return to a point north of Aldebaran in the first few days of February, so make sure to come back and check it out then!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sunrise:\u00a07:21 A.M.<br \/>Sunset:\u00a04:55 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise:\u00a01:06 A.M.<br \/>Moonset:\u00a011:36 A.M. \u00a0<br \/>Moon Phase:\u00a0Waning crescent (36%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Asteroid 16 Psyche is easy to find this evening as it moves a less&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123,247],"class_list":["post-240233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}