These will be the 101 best astronomical events of 2016

Here it is… our year end look at upcoming events in a sky near you.

We’ve been doing this “blog post that takes four months to write” now on one platform or another every year since 2009, and every year, it gets bigger and more diverse, thanks to reader input.

This is not a top 10 listicle, and not a full-fledged almanac, but hopefully, something special and unique in between. And as always, some of the events listed will be seen by a large swath of humanity, while others grace the hinterlands and may well go unrecorded by human eyes.

We’ll explain our reasoning for drilling down each category, and give a handy list of resources at the end. 

Here’s our quick picks for the very best astronomical events for 2016:

• Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina continues to perform as a binocular comet through January.
• Mars reaches opposition on May 22^nd.
• Mercury transits the Sun on May 9th, the first time it has done so since 2006.
• A close grouping of Venus and Jupiter on August 27^th.
• A total solar eclipse of the Sun crossing southeast Asia on March 9^th.
• A fine series of occultations of the bright star Aldebaran by the Moon continues, including a fine nighttime event on January 20^th for North America.
• An annular solar eclipse across central Africa on September 1^st.

And check out this nifty simulation of lunar phases for 2016 courtesy of the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:

No dawn or dusk elongations of the planet Venus occur in 2016. The last time Venus experienced an ‘elongationless year’ was 2008, and the next is 2024, right in step with the 8-year cycle of Venus. 2016 also sees the Sun coming off of the maximum for solar cycle #24, and its anyone’s guess as to whether we’ll slide into another profound minimum, or if cycle #25 will occur at all. This will also impact the appearance of sunspots and aurorae for the year to come.

And speaking of the Sun, here’s what the joint NASA/ESA Solar Heliospheric Observatory will see crossing its 15 degree-wide LASCO C3 camera in 2016:

Here’s what we looked for this year in each category to ‘make the cut:’

• Asteroid occultations: events with a 99% probability of occulting of stars brighter than +8^th magnitude.
• Double shadow transits: events involving the Jovian moons farther than 10 degrees from the Sun.
• Known comets expected to break +10 magnitude brightness and visible in binoculars. Remember though, the next ‘great comet’ could still show up at any time!
• Conjunctions of naked eye planets passing closer than one degree apart.
• Occultations involving the Moon and naked eye planets, or the ‘bright four’ stars along the Moon’s path (Aldebaran, Spica, Regulus or Antares).
• There are 4 eclipses in 2016 – two lunar and two solar — the minimum that can occur in a calendar year. There are no total lunar eclipses in 2016, just two faint penumbrals.
• Weirdness: Yes, Moons super, mini, black & blue are more are included. These are more of a modern cultural phenomenon than a true astronomical event, sure, but the public loves ’em, and we continue to include ’em.
• Meteor showers: annual showers with an expected zenithal hourly rate of 10 or higher.
• Times are quoted in Universal Time (UT being approximately equal to UTC/Zulu and GMT) with a 24 hour clock, and we’ve occasionally quoted EST-centric Eastern Standard/Daylight Time as needed.

Ready? Here we go…

January

1- Comet C/2013 X1 PanSTARRS may break binocular brightness at +10^thmagnitude.

4- The Quadrantid meteors peak at ~8:00UT/3:00 AM EST, with an estimated ZHR of 120 favoring North America.

9- Venus passes 15’ from Saturn at 4:00 UT/11:00 PM EST (on the 8^th).

20- The 81% illuminated Moon occults Aldebaran at ~2:40 UT/9:40 PM EST (on the 19^th) for North America.

February

7- Mercury reaches 25.6 degrees western elongation at 5:00 UT/0:00 AM EST.

16- The 59% illuminated Moon occults Aldebaran at 8:05 UT/3:05 AM EST for the northern Pacific.

22- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 20:43-20:46 UT.

26- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 9:39-10:01 UT.

29- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 22:34-23:20 UT.

March

04- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 11:32-12:38 UT.

08- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 00:28-01:56 UT.

08- Jupiter reaches opposition at 10:00 UT/5:00 AM EST.

09- A total solar eclipse spans the Pacific and SE Asia centered on 1:58 UT. The only total solar eclipse of 2016, and the final one until the 2017 total solar eclipse spanning the United States.

09- Double shadow transit (Io-Ganymede) occurs from 18:56-19:11 UT.

11- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 13:24-15:15 UT.

14- The 37% illuminated Moon occults Aldebaran at 14:07 UT/10:07 AM EDT for Central Asia.

15- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 2:21-4:34 UT.

16- Double shadow transit (Io-Ganymede) occurs from 20:51-23:05 UT.

18- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 15:19-17:50 UT.

20- The March northward equinox occurs at 4:30 UT, marking GEO satellite flare and eclipse season.

22- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 4:23-7:10 UT.

23- Double shadow transit (Io-Ganymede) occurs from 23:47-0:58 UT (on the 24^th).

23- A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs, centered on the central Pacific around 11:48 UT.

25- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 17:41-19:26 UT.

29- Double shadow transit (Io-Europa) occurs from 7:00-8:24 UT.