Monthly Night Sky information provided by Chris Vaughan (@Astrogeoguy) at Starry Night Education (@StarryNightEdu).
On mid-December evenings the constellation of Perseus is climbing the northeastern sky. Just for 2024, bright Jupiter will also be gleaming to the lower right of Perseus. The outer rim of our Milky Way galaxy runs through Perseus’ stars, filling its territory with rich star clusters. The largest of those surrounds his brightest star, Mirfak, […]
Located only about 150 light years away from the sun, Taurus, the Bull’s triangular face is actually one of the nearest open star clusters to our solar system. Its stars are commonly called The Hyades, named for the five daughters of Atlas in Greek mythology. It also has the designations Melotte 25 and Caldwell 41. […]
The Ursids meteor shower, which is produced by particles of debris dropped by the periodic comet 8P/Tuttle, runs from December 17 to 26 every year. The weak, short-duration shower will peak (usually with only 5 to 10 meteors visible in an hour) while Earth is traversing the densest part of the debris field on Sunday […]
Winter in the Northern Hemisphere will officially commence in the Americas on Saturday, December 21 at 4:21 a.m. EST and 1:21 a.m. PST, or 09:21 GMT. At the solstice, the sun will attain its southernmost declination for the year, resulting in the lowest elevation in the sky of the noonday sun, the least amount of […]
The moon will complete three quarters of its orbit around Earth, measured from the previous new moon, on Sunday, December 22 at 5:18 p.m. EST, 2:18 p.m. PST, or 22:18 GMT. At its third (or last) quarter phase the moon is half-illuminated, on its western, sunward side. It will rise around midnight local time, and […]