Now that the new year has settled in, all of you who have your brand-new telescopes or astronomy software have assembled or downloaded it and are ready to do some serious viewing, right? So let's get the commercial over with early by reminding you that there are several resources in town that can help you get started in the hobby of astronomy.

First, come to our regular Sky Tonight, "first Friday" lectures at the planetarium every month at 7 p.m. to learn about the monthly sky. We also include viewing from the deck or in our observatory if the weather permits.

Second, the Hawaiian Astronomical Society is our local amateur group ready to lend expertise and assistance. It holds public star parties regularly and also convenes at the Bishop Museum for its monthly club meetings.

Check our planetarium Web site for details and links, or call the planetarium office for more information. And keep reading this column. Once the night sky becomes more familiar to you, you may find a deeper appreciation for the things you can see in space.

For instance, an interesting star comes to light this month in a faint constellation called Cetus. The name Cetus probably sounds familiar since its roots are related to the word cetacean, associated with marine mammals such as dolphins or whales, but in ancient Greek mythology Cetus was a terrifying sea monster. He dwells in a "watery" area of the sky bordered by Aquarius the Water Bearer, the river Eridanus and Pisces the Fish. None of these constellations is easy to find. You need a good star map to locate them, but if you can get to a darker area, you can look for Cetus in what looks like a fairly empty area of sky. That area of the sky looks empty because of the relative lack of very bright stars. To the east lie Orion, Taurus, Canis Major, Auriga and Gemini, all of which have most of the brightest stars of the winter sky.

But getting back to Cetus — if you can find it, look for the star almost halfway between the head and the neck of the sea monster, identified on star maps as Mira. Mira belongs to a special class of stars called variables, stars that vary in brightness for a number of reasons. In Mira's case, this star is expanding and contracting as it nears the end of its life — blowing off stellar material as a result of its need to consume itself for fuel. This cycle of expansion and contraction averages around 330 days and right now it is beginning to brighten. It will reach its maximum brightness in March, so watching it over the next few weeks should show a noticeable change in visibility.

Mira is an example of what scientists believe is the eventual fate of our own star, the sun, in about 5 billion years or so. Eventually, all its fuel spent, these variables end up as dead stars known as white dwarves. Thankfully, our own sun won't reach that point for a long time.

NEW HORIZONS, THEMIS

Two exciting missions will stand out in the news in February. The New Horizons mission swings close to Jupiter on its way to Pluto after a little more than a year after leaving Earth. Aside from performing observations and tests around the massive planet and its largest moons, the little spacecraft will gain more speed as the gravity of Jupiter accelerates it to more than 52,000 miles per hour. New Horizons is around one-eighth of the way on its journey to the outer "dwarf planet," scheduled to encounter Pluto in 2015.

The other mission, a set of five probes called THEMIS ("Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms"), will launch in mid-February to study aurora caused by solar storms. Scientists are hoping to gain more information to predict these storms that could potentially cause power or communication failures.

THE PLANETS

Mercury: Look for Mercury right after sunset under the more obvious Venus in the west. Mercury reaches greatest elongation Feb. 7 before starting on its quick passage back to the horizon and toward the morning sky. Mercury appears small and dim next to its brilliant companion Venus but is not difficult to spot even against the glow of the setting sun.

Venus: Venus continues to rise higher in the western sky and stay out longer after sunset. For those with binoculars or telescopes, Venus, Mercury and Uranus are all clustered in the west throughout the first half of the month. Uranus will only be visible with magnification, but make sure to look for it only after the sun has completely set. On Feb. 19, look for a thin crescent right above Venus.

Mars: Mars rises around an hour and a half earlier than the sun in the east, right above the handle of the teapot of Sagittarius. It's still quite dim because of its distance away from us, but that will change by the end of the year as it makes another close approach to the Earth.

Jupiter: Jupiter is the brightest planet in the morning sky now that Venus has moved to the evenings. Look for the giant planet to the left of Scorpius around 3:30 a.m. in early February and by 2 a.m. at the end of the month.

Saturn: Saturn is at opposition on Feb. 10, rising at sunset and remaining in the sky all night. It is positioned in the "face" of Leo the Lion, which forms a shape of a sickle or a backward question mark. Saturn is bright this year but is slowly moving away from us in its oblong orbit and will dim in the next dozen years. Saturn's rings are also starting to dim as its rings are becoming edgewise to our point of view.

MOON PHASES

Full Moon: Feb. 1

Third Quarter: Feb. 9

New Moon: Feb. 17

First Quarter: Feb. 23