Look west just as soon as it gets dark tonight (Friday) and tomorrow night too and see a pretty pairing of Mars and Venus! They are closer than they've been in half a dozen years. Tonight you'll see the slender crescent moon just below the pair, and tomorrow night the moon will be a little bigger crescent above the planets. Here's a little blurb I wrote about along with this months What's Up video. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-archive.cfm Also, we have selected dates for both the spring and fall Mojave National Preserve star parties! The Spring MNP Star Party will be Saturday June 13th 2015 and the Fall MNP Star Party will be Saturday October 17th 2015. If you haven't joined us, sometimes lead time will help with you planning. This is a dark sky, free group campsite in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve (for a limited number of tents, and there is a RSVP but it is free) a communal pot luck, some brief words from the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, the Rangers, and ahem, me. Then telescopes! It won't get dark in June until about 9 p.m, but we couldn't make any dates fit all of our schedules when the campsite was available until June. That's why we went ahead and selected the fall date ahead of time. More on that later. For now, get outside and look up, if it is clear! Also, three of us may be going to Amboy Crater for dark sky observing tomorrow. Shoot me an email if you plan to join us - we would leave around noon- 1 p.m. from Monrovia to set up before dark. There are some dark sky observing rules about lights, so let me know if you want to join us, and I'll fill you in. Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA Jane Houston Jones @jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight What's Up For February? PlanetPairs <3 http://youtu.be/NR8HCsog5MM