Saturday: Imagine Opie and Andy Taylor walking down the dirt path at night to that fishing hole in the sky. They’d probably be looking to catch Pisces, the two fish already conveniently tied together with two ropes. The ropes are connected at the star Alrescha, Arabic for “the cord”. Alrescha is four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south at 8:30 p.m. Tonight it is also three fists to the left of the moon. The fish are attached to lines of stars that branch out at one o’clock and three o’clock from Alrescha. By the way, “The Fishing Hole”, The Andy Griffith Show’s theme song, was rated the 20th best TV theme song of all time by ign.com. That’s too low of a ranking in my opinion.
Sunday: Sirius, the brightest star in the nighttime sky is
two fists above the southeastern horizon at 11:00 p.m.
Monday: The Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow
morning. Meteor showers are named after the constellation from which the
meteors appear to originate. These meteors appear to come from a point in
Gemini the twins. This point is about four fists above due east at midnight
tonight. You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain near
the bright star Castor, the right-hand star of the “twin” stars Pollux and
Castor. By 4:00 a.m., it is four fists above the southwest horizon. This shower
is typically one of the best ones of the year producing bright, medium speed
meteors with up to 80 meteors per hour under ideal conditions near the peak.
This year, the waxing gibbous moon will be in the sky until about 2:00 a.m.,
obscuring the dimmer meteors until that time.
Most meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through the
orbital trail of a comet. The broken off comet fragments collide with the Earth
and burn up in the atmosphere. Astronomers had searched for a comet source for
this shower since 1862 when the shower was first observed. Finally, in 1983,
astronomers discovered the object that created the fragments that cause the
meteor shower each year. To their surprise, it was a dark rock that looked like
an asteroid, not a shiny icy comet. Astronomers named this object Asteroid 3200
Phaethon. For more information about the Geminid shower, go to https://goo.gl/f4qMqg.
Tuesday: The bright star Capella is nearly straight overhead
at 11:30 p.m.
Wednesday: Last week we learned that the early December
evenings are getting darker earlier than any time of the year. While the sky is
getting darker earlier, the nighttime sky is actually getting brighter due to
the greater use of low energy LED bulbs. While these bulbs use much less energy
than incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, researchers think that people
and communities are using more of the bulbs and leaving them on longer. This is
increasing light pollution near cities. You can get more illumination on the
subject at https://goo.gl/1CdqcH.
Thursday: Mars is nearly one fist above due southeast at
7:00 a.m.
Friday: Today is the start of the Saturnalia celebration, an
ancient Roman festival in honor of their god Saturn, the god of agriculture and
time. The holiday featured a break from work and school, a public banquet, and
private gift giving. Some of these customs influenced the secular aspects of
Christmas celebrations. After Sheldon hugged Penny on The Big Bang Theory,
Leonard proclaimed, “It’s a Saturnalia miracle” https://youtu.be/yarNJnZw2yk.
It would not be a miracle if you saw the planet Saturn today. It is midway
between two much brighter planets. At 5:00 p.m., Venus is one fist above the
southwestern horizon. Saturn is about a fist and a half to the upper left of
Venus. Jupiter is nearly two fists to the upper left of Saturn.
The positional information in this column about stars and
planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information
about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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