I love December stargazing. We max out on nighttime with more than 13 hours of totally dark skies per night over Everett, and these dark skies become occupied by some of the best constellations of the year.
Bundle up, get out that comfy reclining lawn chair, and enjoy the cold, clear night delights. Your neighbors may think you’ve lost your mind lounging in lawn chairs, but they’re missing out on a great show.
The Venus-Jupiter conjunction continues in the southwestern sky early in the evening, but the planets are beginning to part company from each other.
But before they start their separate ways, there will be a wonderful conjunction Monday night between Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon. The moon will lie just above the sparkling pair of planets in the post twilight southwestern sky.
Venus is the brighter of the two, shining to the left of Jupiter. As the month continues, Jupiter will continue to pull away from the planet named after the Roman goddess of love. By the end of the month, Jupiter will be setting shortly after the sun.
As it begins to pull behind our home star it will disappear from our view, not to be seen in the evening sky again until late next summer.
In the early evening western sky you can still see the Summer Triangle of stars; Vega, Altair and Deneb, which are the brightest stars in their respective constellations. Deneb, a star at least 1,500 light-years away, is the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus, otherwise known by its nickname, the Northern Cross. During the holiday season the cross is standing nearly upright above the northwestern horizon. This is the last call for the Northern Cross and the Summer Triangle, because next month, the night side of the Earth will turn away from that part of space.
The great horse Pegasus is riding high in the south-southwestern sky with Cassiopeia, the one that looks like a bright W in the high northern sky. The Big Dipper is still very low in the northern sky, but you’ll notice that from night to night it will gradually get higher, standing diagonally on its handle. The Little Dipper is hanging by its handle above the Big Dipper, with Polaris, the North Star, at the end of its handle.
Because Polaris is shining directly above Earth’s North Pole, it appears that all of the stars in the sky revolve around Polaris once every 24 hours, including our sun.
The later you stay up in the evening, the more you’ll see of the best part of December skies rising in the east. By 8 to 9 p.m., you’ll easily see Orion, that wonderful winter constellation, rising in the east. It’s easily identified by the three bright stars in a row that make up Orion’s belt. Preceding Orion are the bright autumn constellations Taurus, with the wonderful Pleiades star cluster, and Auriga, the constellation that looks like a lopsided pentagon with the bright star Capella.
Just to the north of Orion is the constellation Gemini, with the bright stars Castor and Pollux in position on the forehead of the twins. I call this part of the sky “Orion and his gang.”
There’s also one of the year’s best meteor showers this month, the Geminid meteor shower. It peaks out the morning of Dec. 13, but unfortunately there’s a full moon that will wash out many of the shooting stars.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the book, “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com
The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members and puts on public star parties. The Web site is members.tripod.com/everett_astronomy.
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