Now if you were listening to Keri yesterday you may recall he said that last night would be hopeless for star gazing, well that was just another fine example of how he’s not to be trusted, last night was the best night we’ve had for ages. And gave me the best view of Orion I’ve seen since March, and the first sighting I’ve had of Mars since last winter.
I’ll be away until from today until mid December so this will be the last Scilly Stars until the 16th of December. So this week the plan is to give you any highlights that occur over the next 6 weeks. But sadly there aren’t any except possibly the Geminids meteor shower which appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. They can be seen as early December the 6th when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next week, rates increase until a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour is attained on the night of December 13/14. The last Geminids are seen on December 18, when the rate drops to one every hour or so. Have a look on the Scilly Star map on the blog and set the date for the 13th of December. Gemini rises around 6 and is high in the South by midnight with Mars trailing about an hour behind.
I’ll be away until from today until mid December so this will be the last Scilly Stars until the 16th of December. So this week the plan is to give you any highlights that occur over the next 6 weeks. But sadly there aren’t any except possibly the Geminids meteor shower which appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. They can be seen as early December the 6th when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next week, rates increase until a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour is attained on the night of December 13/14. The last Geminids are seen on December 18, when the rate drops to one every hour or so. Have a look on the Scilly Star map on the blog and set the date for the 13th of December. Gemini rises around 6 and is high in the South by midnight with Mars trailing about an hour behind.
Most of the other highlights are for diehards, involving Jovian moons or Asteroids. But there is one it should be hard to miss, the full moon on the second of December, not so interesting in itself, but the next one is the last of the year and falls on New Years Eve, which makes it a blue moon, so why not celebrate.
Throughout the whole period Jupiter will be in the Southern Sky at sunset, edging further to the SW as the nights go by, and setting around 9pm by mid December.
Tomorrow morning if your out and about at 6:30 you’ll be able to see Venus near the South Eastern horizon with Saturn further south, very close to the moon and a little further to the west Mars. As the weeks go on Venus sinks into the sun, to reappear in the New Year, but Saturn and Mars are still there moving a little to the west each day, which means they are rising earlier every night.
Mars appears in the East tonight at about 10pm, Saturn at around 4am. By mid December Mars appears north east at 9, as Jupiter sets and Saturn rises around 1:45 am. We’ll have to wait until January before we see Saturn before midnight.
I’ll update the blog while I’m away, when I can, but there’s always the Scilly Star Map link over on ther right which will give you a map of the sky between now and eternity.
That was you night sky for the 5 weeks ending on 236th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
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