{"id":255211,"date":"2026-01-24T10:57:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/255211\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T10:57:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T10:57:06","slug":"the-sky-today-on-saturday-january-24-psyche-makes-its-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/255211\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Saturday, January 24: Psyche makes its turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tAsteroid Psyche has switched from retrograde to prograde motion on the sky. You can find the main-belt world just north of Aldebaran tonight. \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\/il\/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-23-to-30-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">January 23: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-friday-january-23-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Moon visits Saturn and Neptune<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Asteroid 16 Psyche is making a tight turnaround in Taurus this month, switching its motion from westward (retrograde) to eastward (prograde). Tonight it has just finished turning that corner, located north of the bright red giant star Aldebaran, which marks the Bull\u2019s eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Taurus is already well above the horizon a few hours after sunset. Around 8 P.M. local time, the region housing Psyche is roughly 70\u00b0 high in the south \u2014 about as high as it will get all night. Aldebaran should be easy to find, glowing brightly at magnitude 0.9. You may notice it has a reddish or orangey hue. As an aging red giant, this star has expanded and cooled off, changing the color of its light.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tonight, Psyche is 1.8\u00b0 north and a little west of Aldebaran. You should be able to capture both in a wide-field telescope, or simply nudge a smaller field of view north just a little from Aldebaran to capture Psyche. The strange, metallic world glows at 11th magnitude, best seen in 3-inch or larger scopes at medium power.<\/p>\n<p>Sunrise:\u00a07:15 A.M.<br \/>Sunset:\u00a05:10 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise:\u00a010:06 A.M.<br \/>Moonset:\u00a011:42 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase:\u00a0Waxing crescent (39%)<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 Psyche has switched from retrograde to prograde motion on the sky. You can&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,2928,141,43844],"class_list":["post-255211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}