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. 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: The bright star Capella is nearly straight overhead
at midnight.
Monday: Mars is three fists above due east at 7:00 p.m. As
seen through small telescopes on Earth, Mars looks like a reddish circle.
During the Martian winter, you might be able to see the Martian polar ice cap.
But not much else. Up close, Mars has a very interesting topography. The southern
hemisphere of Mars is many kilometers higher, on average, than the northern
hemisphere. Some scientists think this may be due to a collision between Mars
and another planet in the early solar system. There is a color-coded image of
the Martian surface at https://stardate.org/astro-guide/gallery/martian-dichotomy.
Tuesday: 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 waning gibbous moon will be in the sky starting at about 9:30
p.m., obscuring the dimmer meteors after 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.
Wednesday: Jupiter is four fists above due south at 6:30
p.m.
Thursday: 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://www.latimes.com/environment/light-pollution-latt-123.
Friday: Venus is the bright point of light just above the
southwestern horizon at 4:45 p.m. Mercury is to the upper left of Venus.
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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