Interpol

The sun scarperd over the horizon yesterday to make sheep all over the Falkland Islands hot and sweaty and desiccate forests all over Australia for the seasonal Christmas bush fires, and plunged us into autumn. And you can tell autumn’s here if you look at the eastern horizon after midnight. Taurus with its brilliant red eye Aldebaran is already well up. Mars and Orion put in a tentative appearance at about 12:30. Mars is in Gemini and will be clearly visible in the north east after 2am.

If you bizarrely you’d rather be in bed at 2 then we still have Jupiter blazing away in the Southern sky for most of the night. Look at it through binoculars and you’ll see a clear disc and up to 4 of the Galilean moons, named after Galileo who is credited with being the first man ever to see them. I know I keep saying this week after week but the heavens, mercifully, are renowned for slow sedate change, which is an anathema in this day and age, and certainly if they were a soap then no one would bother watching.

Before the dawn Venus is shining brightly in the east with much dimmer Mercury a little lower slightly to the North, but Mercury will probably be lost in the sunrise, as certainly will be Saturn a little behind it. And just for a change I didn’t look any of that up but rather gleaned it all from the wonderful Scilly Star map which is linked to on the Scilly Stars blog. But who in there right mind is up that early, even Scarborough Bimpson, real name withheld at the insistence of Interpol, who are running a covert surveillance operation, well less covert now, anyway even Scarborough is in bed by then having deposited her nightly stash in her two bulging warehouses hidden beneath mount Moorwell. And then of course there’s poor Chris who’s right at the start of his first morning show, playing music he can’t bear to people he has yet to learn to love, and like Caviar they are an acquired taste Chris.

If you look to the Southwest up to the weekend you’ll see the waxing moon rising through Scorpio and on to the Sagittarius Teapot. Libra is a little further to the Southwest of Scorpio with the Sun, which is why we’ve just gone in to Libra, and Scorpio is next in the spot light then Sagittarius you can probably see the emerging pattern. In fact the one sign of the zodiac that you’ll never ever see is the one we’re currently in. And that’s about it except.

It seems there’s been a flurry of UFO activity in Germany over the last month, but nothing here alas. I never quite know what to think of UFOs, I’m sure there’s a possibility, but it seems a long way to come just to flash a few lights and zoom off, and by the way why do aliens only kidnap people who like country and western music. And of course Fallon Colby, Alexis and Blake Carrington’s daughter in Dynasty and when she came back Jeff her husband didn’t even notice, and neither did anyone else.

That was your night sky for the week ending on the 38th anniversary of Oman joining the Arab League.