Special to CosmicTribune.com, December 30, 2024
Excerpts from weekly Sky&Telescope report.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 29
■ As the year nears its end, Orion fully comes into his own. He’s striding up the east-southeastern sky as soon as it gets dark, with his three-star Belt nearly vertical. Left of the Belt is orange Betelgeuse and right of the Belt is bright white Rigel, supergiants both.
The Belt points up toward Aldebaran and Jupiter and, even higher, the Pleiades. In the other direction, it points down to where Sirius rises less than an hour after twilight’s end.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 30
■ The Pleiades cluster shines very high in the southeast after dinnertime, no bigger than your fingertip at arm’s length. How many Pleiads can you count with your unaided eye? Take your time and keep looking. Most people with good or well-corrected vision count 6. With extra-sharp vision, a good dark sky, and a steady gaze, you may be able to make out 8 or 9. Binoculars will show dozens.
■ New Moon (exact at 5:27 p.m. EST).
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31
■ After the noise and whoopla at the turning of midnight tonight, put down your drink (or whatever) and step outside into the silent, cold dark. Shining at its highest in the south will be Sirius. It is the bottom star of the bright, equilateral Winter Triangle. The other two are Betelgeuse in Orion’s shoulder to Sirius’s upper right, and Procyon the same distance to Sirius’s upper left. The Triangle now stands upright, just about in balance on Sirius as the old year tips to the new.
And this year, upper right of Betelgeuse Jupiter shines brightly, and upper left of Procyon Mars shines brightly. They are extensions of the sides of the triangle. With it they form a giant, Hyades-shaped Taurus face, some 15 times larger than the original just under Jupiter. Gaze into that huge entity, and feel it looking back at you in its enormity. Keep looking; try to perceive what it is silently telling you. Therein lies an omen for the new year from your subconscious mind. You are free to accept it, or to refuse it and hurl it back in the giant Taurus face. Only one of those choices will be correct. Choose wisely. It will likely be the one whereby you move in the direction of greatest courage.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1
■ Jupiter’s moon Io slides behind Jupiter’s western limb at 7:53 p.m. EST. Watch it reappear from eclipse out of Jupiter’s shadow at 10:43 p.m. EST, a little east of the planet.
Now Antares is higher than Mercury in the dawn (unless you’re very far north). Mercury is magnitude –0.4 this morning, which is four times brighter than Antares at magnitude +1.1.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 2
■ To the right of bright Jupiter these evenings shines orange Aldebaran, which comes with the large, loose Hyades cluster in its background. Binoculars are the ideal instrument for this cluster given its size: its brightest stars (magnitude 3.5 to 5) span an area about 4° wide. Higher above, the Pleiades are hardly more than 1° across counting just the brightest stars.
The main Hyades stars form a V, lying on its side in the evening. Aldebaran forms the lower of the V’s two tips. With binoculars, follow the lower branch of the V to the right from Aldebaran. The first thing you come to is the House asterism: a pattern of stars like a child’s drawing of a house with a peaked roof. The house is currently upright and bent to the right like it got pushed.
The House includes three easy binocular double stars that form an equilateral triangle, with each pair facing the others. The brightest pair is Theta1 and Theta2 Tauri (the only members of the House that appear on the chart at the top of this page). You may find that you can resolve the Theta pair with your unaided eyes.
■ Action at Jupiter. Ganymede slowly reappears out from behind Jupiter’s eastern limb at 7:00 p.m. EST, only to slowly disappear into Jupiter’s shadow 26 minutes later. It re-emerges from the shadow farther out from Jupiter at 9:44 p.m. EST.
Meanwhile, Io slides off of Jupiter’s western edge at 7:12 p.m., followed by its tiny black shadow leaving Jupiter’s face at 7:52 p.m. EST.
And Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, not exactly easy to see, should cross the planet’s central meridian around 10:59 p.m. EST.
Right after nightfall (which comes at different times depending on your location), look for 3rd-magnitude Delta Capricorni low over the thin crescent Moon. Next comes the big show: The crescent’s pairing with Venus on Friday the 3rd, and then, as something of an anticlimax, with Saturn on Saturday the 4th.
■ This will likely be a poor year for the Quadrantid meteor shower early Friday morning if you’re in North America or Europe. The “Quads” have a brief, strong peak that lasts 6 hours or less, with little activity before and after. This year the peak should be centered near 17:45 UT January 3rd (1:45 p.m. EST) according to the International Meteor Organization. That would be good for the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Other sources give predictions as early 15:00 UT (10 a.m. EST, 7 a.m. PST), good for Alaska and possibly for the West Coast as the beginning of dawn approaches. There will be no moonlight.
The shower’s radiant is in northernmost Boötes, between the end of the Big Dipper’s handle and the head of Draco. It’s highest before dawn.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 3
■ Crescent Moon and Venus. Once again the Moon, in its monthly orbit, shines near Venus in the west during and after dusk, as shown above. They’ll be 3° apart at the end of twilight when seen from the East Coast, and 4° or 5° apart as seen from the West Coast. If you’ve missed previous such photo opportunities, here’s a chance to try again.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 4
■ Now the thickening Moon shines upper left of Saturn, as shown.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 5
■ As we enter serious winter in January, the bowl of the Little Dipper hangs straight down from Polaris sometime around 8 or 9 p.m., as if (per Leslie Peltier) from a nail on the cold north wall of the sky.
The brightest star of the Little Dipper’s dim bowl is Kochab, marking the bowl’s lip. It’s the equal of Polaris. Kochab passes precisely below Polaris around 8 p.m., depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone.
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