If you can’t identify the planet through binoculars, aim a telescope at your suspected quarry. Only Uranus shows a disk, which spans 3.6" and glows blue-green. The distinct color arises because methane in the ice giant’s atmosphere absorbs red sunlight while reflecting blue. Your best views of Uranus will come when it rides high in the south in early evening.
Once Uranus sets — near 2 a.m. local time in early January and midnight late in the month — the sky remains empty of planets until Mars shows its ruddy face around 4 a.m. Within an hour or so, you can find it low in the southeast along with its ancient rival, Antares. The Red Planet brightens from magnitude 1.6 to 1.4 during January and appears slightly fainter than the magnitude 1.1 red supergiant star. Mars passes 5° north of Antares in mid-January.
As dawn starts to break about 90 minutes before sunrise, the Red Planet stands 15° above the horizon. Embedded among the background stars near the Scorpius-Ophiuchus border, Mars is a sight to behold in the predawn darkness, particularly January 20, when a waning crescent Moon appears above the planet and Antares. Unfortunately, a telescope reveals a featureless Mars with a disk less than 5" in diameter.
Jupiter reappears in the morning sky during January’s second half. An hour before sunrise on the 22nd, a slim crescent Moon appears 7° to Jupiter’s upper right. The pair looks gorgeous against the twilight glow. The planet shines at magnitude –1.9 and shows up easily in the brightening sky. Jupiter’s visibility improves through the end of the month, when it climbs 7° high in the southeast 45 minutes before the Sun rises.
Saturn is in conjunction with the Sun on January 13, coincidentally the same day that the two brightest dwarf planets, Pluto and Ceres, reach the same milestone. The ringed planet reemerges before dawn by the 31st, but just barely. You might be able to catch its magnitude 0.6 glow through binoculars just 3° high in the southeast 30 minutes before sunup. Much better views await observers this spring and summer.
The Moon dips into Earth’s shadow January 10, bringing a penumbral lunar eclipse to residents across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. During a penumbral eclipse, the Moon passes through our planet’s lighter outer shadow but does not enter the darker umbral shadow. (If you were an astronaut visiting the Moon, you would see Earth partially eclipsing the Sun.) The event lasts from 17h06m to 21h14m UT and peaks at 19h10m UT. At maximum, 92 percent of Luna lies in Earth’s penumbra, and the Moon’s southern half will darken noticeably.