This month, the last quarter moon is December 6. The waning crescent moon passes just south of Venus (watch both in broad daylight after sunrise) on December 9. The new moon is on December 12; four months until totality on April 8. The waxing crescent will set well before midnight on December 13, the peak for perhaps the best annual meteor shower, the Geminids. The meteors come out of Gemini in the northeast, and while there may be more after midnight, there tend be to quite a few in the evening as well, and the faint crescent will not interfere even then. The crescent passes below Saturn on December 17, and the first quarter moon is on December 19. The winter solstice occurs on December 21 at 9:27 CST to begin winter, and this is our shortest day. The waxing gibbous moon passes just left of Jupiter on December 22 with clear afternoon skies. The Full, or Yule Moon, is the day after Christmas this year.
Jupiter is well placed for evening viewing in Aries, dominating the eastern sky at dusk, and Saturn is getting lower in the southwest in Aquarius. Observe all four giants now, as Uranus (Aries) and Neptune (Aquarius) are also visible in binoculars. Nor seen is Comet Halley. This month it is at aphelion, outside the orbit of Neptune; by January, it heads sunward again, to arrive with the naked eyes in the dawn skies of June 2061. At its best that August, it will be ten times brighter than it appeared back in 1986. Something to live for!
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies visit skymaps.com.
The square of Pegasus dominates the western sky. South of it are the watery constellations of Pisces (the fish), Capricorn (sea goat), Aquarius (the water bearer) with Saturn now, and Cetus (the whale). Below Aquarius is Fomalhaut, the only first-magnitude star of the southern fall sky. It marks the mouth of Pisces Australius, the Southern Fish. If you want an ideal app for learning the constellations, download “Nocturne” for Apple phones, and mount it on a tripod for exposures of the sky, which you can then annotate with star names, constellation lines, and even the mythological figures.
The constellation Cassiopeia makes a striking west in the northwest. Her daughter, Andromeda, starts with the northeast corner star of Pegasus’ square. Overhead is Andromeda’s hero, Perseus, rises. Perseus contains the famed eclipsing binary star Algol, where the Arabs imagined the eye of the gorgon Medusa would lie. It fades to a third of its normal brightness for six out of every 70 hours, as a larger but cooler orange giant covers about 80% of the smaller but hotter and thus brighter companion as seen from Earth. This method of observing changes in a star’s brightness when another body (even a planet) eclipses it is a very powerful tool in finding stars sizes, shapes (tidal distortion of Algol was confirmed by my master’s thesis at Gainesville), and exoplanets.
Yellow Capella, a giant star with the same temperature and color as our much smaller Sun, dominates the overhead sky. It is part of the pentagon on stars making up Auriga, the Charioteer. Several nice binocular Messier open clusters are found in the winter Milky Way here. East of Auriga, the twins, Castor and Pollux highlight the Gemini. UWF alumni can associate the pair with Jason and the Golden Fleece legend, for they were the first two Argonauts to sign up on his crew of adventurers.
South of Gemini, Orion is the most familiar winter constellation, dominating the eastern sky at dusk. The reddish supergiant Betelgeuse marks his eastern shoulder, while the blue-white supergiant Rigel stands opposite on his west knee. Just south of the belt, hanging like a sword downward, is M-42, the Great Nebula of Orion, an outstanding binocular and telescopic stellar nursery. It is part of a huge spiral arm gas cloud, with active star birth all over the place. My new See Star S 50, costing only $500 took this fine image of the stellar nursery in only one minute. I was safely in the car with the heater running and the “Star Trek” soundtrack playing while controlling the scope with my Samsung Galaxy A 54 at the Starlight Drive-in theatre. Check our Facebook page for Bolide (flash) observing parties on clear evenings at the easily accessible airport approach.
Something very special will happen to Betelgeuse on the evening of December 11. AT 8:17 p.m. EST, observers in Key West should see this bright star fade greatly for a few seconds. The small main best asteroid Leona will cover (some!) of the huge surface of this red supergiant, one of the biggest in the galaxy. For more on that, click here.
Last but certainly not least, in the east rise the hunter’s two faithful companions, Canis major and minor. Procyon is the bright star in the little dog and rises minutes before Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Sirius dominates the southeast sky by 7 p.m., and as it rises, the turbulent winter air causes it to sparkle with shafts of spectral fire. Beautiful as the twinkling appears to the naked eye, for astronomers this means the image is blurry; only in space can we truly see “clearly now”. At eight light years distance, Sirius is the closest star we can easily see with the naked eye from West Florida. You must be in South Florida to spot Alpha Centauri on June evenings. Below Sirius in binoculars is another fine open cluster, M-41, a fitting dessert for New Year’s sky feast.
On the Saturdays of the first and third quarter moon, we continue our cooperation with the Florida State Parks at Big Lagoon State Park. Here the emphasis is on learning to observe and photograph the night sky with binoculars or your own telescopes and smartphones or other cameras. Normal entry fees ($6 per car) to Big Lagoon still apply, and remember to check in the front gate before it closes at sunset (5 p.m. currently). Clear skies permitting, we will set up on December 2 & 16, January 6 & 20, February 3 & 17, and March 2 & 16.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, visit us on Facebook or contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State College by e-mail at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. For more on our solar eclipse glasses and plans for the solar eclipse coming up on April 8, 2024, contact me by email at johnwaynewooten@ gmail.com. Also, call 850-291-9334 for telescope recommendations for Christmas. All EAAA events are free and open to the public.
