The Night Sky January 2025

Welcome to The Night Sky January 2025! Start of a new year, and I hope the end of 2024 went well for you.

The Night Sky is a curated list of deep sky objects such as galaxies, nebulae and star clusters that I think are interesting to photograph throughout January’s night skies.

What you can expect is targets chosen for specific focal lengths ranging from 200mm all the way up to 2000mm. They’re all based on a full-frame DSLR camera sensor. However, I also include equivalents for popular cameras out there as well. This means that no matter what your camera, what your telescope, you will almost certainly find a suggestion for your skies.

Any planets I include also are chosen only if they raise above 20° altitude for about 2 hours at least. This means the planet clears the worst of the atmosphere, giving you a better chance to get good seeing on it for a better image!

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Deep Sky Objects
200-300mm
400mm
500-600mm
700-800mm
1000mm
1500mm
2000mm
Planets
Lunar Phases
Events
Meteor Showers

The Night Sky January – Deep Sky Objects

200-300mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	74mm – 111mm
294 / 1600	100mm – 150mm
Canon APS-C	125mm – 187mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	133mm – 200mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	200mm – 300mm

My suggestion to kick off the year at a wide field of view will be the ever popular galaxy M31. The Andromeda Galaxy. This famous target gets a lot of attention, however soon it will be below 20° altitude and will not be effective to image. So, my suggestion is to get some final data on it, until it re-emerges towards the end of the year.

Broadband imaging from dark skies with no filter will be the best here. However light pollution reduction filters will help. You can even try some Hydrogen-Alpha as Andromeda has plenty of it. But I would only suggest Ha imaging it if you’re comfortable with narrowband photography and the data is only being used to accentuate broadband images you’ve already got.

M31 with a full frame camera and 300mm focal length

400mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	148mm
294 / 1600	200mm
Canon APS-C	250mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	266mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	400mm

At 400mm focal length on a full frame camera, my suggestion for The Night Sky January 2025 is swinging over to the Auriga constellation and taking advantage of this wider field of view. At this focal length you could image not one, not two but three different emission nebula in one go.

Those are IC405 the Flaming Star Nebula (a personal favourite), IC410 the Tadpole Nebula and IC417 the Spider and Fly Nebula. As mentioned, they’re emission nebula so broadband imaging and narrowband imaging are useful here.

500mm – 600mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	185mm – 222mm
294 / 1600	250mm – 300mm
Canon APS-C	312mm – 375mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	333mm – 400mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	500mm – 600mm

The California Nebula, NGC1499, is a huge favourite of mine. I love the long shape of this and the billowing gaseous detail located within. No matter what type of imaging you do to this nebula, it gives you a nice image. So my choice at 500-600mm for The Night Sky January is this rewarding large nebula located within the Perseus Constellation.

It works at this mid-range focal length as well as at a wider field of view. Feel free to turn a 200-300mm focal length on this nebula, and be rewarded also with a lovely photo. SHO imaging also returns a gorgeous, colourful result.

700mm – 800mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	259mm – 296mm
294 / 1600	350mm – 400mm
Canon APS-C	437mm – 500mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	466mm – 533mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	700mm – 800mm

As the winter starts coming to an end here in the Northern Hemisphere, our winter constellations pack their bags and head south. That includes the Orion Constellation. This hugely popular constellation is home to many famous targets. However none of them are my choice for The Night Sky January at these focal lengths.

Instead we have a beautiful reflective and dark nebula with Messier 78 – Casper The Friendly Ghost nebula. Located near the famous M42 Orion Nebula and often overlooked in my opinion. Dark skies will be your best friend when trying to image this target, but that’s not to say you can’t get an image from your local area.

1000mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	370mm
294 / 1600	500mm
Canon APS-C	625mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	666mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	1000mm

Nestled in the zodiacal constellation of Gemini is an intricately shaped nebula called IC443 – The Jellyfish Nebula. This emission nebula is very easy to see how it got its name.

At 1000mm, your guiding will start getting challenged a little more. But if you have a good sized telescope with good resolution, and some solid guiding, then you can score an excellently detailed image of this curious nebula. Emission based again, so narrowband filters will be beneficial to pick out the finer details here.

1500mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	555mm
294 / 1600	750mm
Canon APS-C	937mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	1000mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	1500mm

For my second to last suggestion for The Night Sky January 2025, I have a beautiful, splendid galaxy called M106. I have imaged this previously but not managed to get a picture I’m necessarily happy with. However, the Splendid Galaxy M106 does have lots of intricate detail begging to be pulled out.

Located in the constellation of Canes Venatici, this galaxy will benefit from patience and large telescopes ideally. Bring out the detail and you’ll have a rewarding image waiting for you.

2000mm

Your Camera Sensor	Focal Length Needed
183 / 533	740mm
294 / 1600	1000mm
Canon APS-C	1250mm
Nikon APS-C/ 071 / 2600	1333mm
Full Frame / Canon 5D / 6200	2000mm

Finally for The Night Sky January 2025, we finish with an astonishing, haloed front facing galaxy. Still located within the constellation of Canes Venatici, M94 – known as the Croc’s Eye Galaxy – is a small target. But again, a barred spiral design and wonderful details await the patient imager.

I managed to use data from Telescope Live for this example as my equipment isn’t the right aperture or focal length to try this. Dark skies are definitely going to be required to pull out all the intricate details and all the little dust sections. Good luck!

M94 The Croc’s Eye, data from Telescope.Live

The Night Sky January 2025 – Planets

If galaxies and nebulae aren’t your thing and you prefer imaging solar system objects like planets. Then never fear, as I am here to give you suggestions.

Again, I only mention planets that raise over 20° in altitude due to the murky atmosphere interfering and causing grief.

This month we have four planets to choose from:

Mars
Jupiter
Uranus
Neptune

Mars will arguably be the best choice this month. Neptune is only around for a brief period and then sets below 20°, and whilst Jupiter is always a sound target with its iconic red dot. It’s Mars that has a certain event happening.

On the 16th January, Mars will be at opposition. That is where it’s almost in a line opposite the Sun, with the Earth in the middle. This means Mars will be fully and brightly illuminated and at a close approach of its orbit. Ideal imaging circumstances for a planet.

My suggestion is certainly go for Mars, go for glory and do it for the Red Planet.

The Night Sky January 2025 – Moon Phases

If you fancy imaging something a bit closer, say, our own satellite. Or want to know when to get the Hydrogen-Alpha filters out, or even when to just have an early night. Here are the Lunar phases for January 2025:

6th January – First Quarter
13th January – Full Moon
31st January – Last Quarter
29th January – New Moon

The Wolf Moon

January’s Full Moon is called the Wolf Moon.

It’s thought that the Native Americans, and the Medieval Europeans referred to January’s Full Moon as the Wolf Moon due to the sounds. Specifically the sounds of howling wolves, that could be heard in the distance. It’s though the wolves howled from hunger or the lack of food during the midwinter times. Hungry and busy hunting, they would howl in packs to indicate where any pray was found, or to express their displeasure.

Other names include the Old Moon, and the Ice Moon. Whereas the University College of London’s Almanac referred to it as the Moon after Yule. That should be fairly obvious as to why.

Events

No events to speak of this month really. There is a comet, C/2024 G3 (ATLAS), but it’s purely southern hemisphere in the constellation of Sagittarious and won’t peak its head above the horizon.

The Night Sky January 2025 – Meteor Showers

The Quadrantids

We have one meteor shower to speak of within January and that is the Quadrantids. Originating from the constellation Böötes towards the North.

This meteor shower began back on the 26th December and will run on until the 12th January. However its peak, the night we can expect the maximum amount of meteors, is the 4th January. There will be a first quarter Moon that night, but it shouldn’t interfere as it will set quite early on.

We can expect a peak rate of about 120 meteors an hour. The meteors will have a blueish or yellowish hue to them and have long, thin tails to them. Get your widest lenses out on your cameras and point them to the north on long exposures and have fun chasing one of the more active meteor showers in the year.