{"id":479,"date":"2019-12-01T18:31:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T18:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=479"},"modified":"2020-10-01T03:43:50","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T03:43:50","slug":"december-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/december-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Jupiter,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn form a nice\ntrio in the evening sky in the first part of December. Look right\nafter sunset. You’ll see Venus first as the twilight fades. It’s\nbetween the other two planets on top of the Sagittarius \u201cteapot\u201d.\nSaturn is on the east side of the teapot and Jupiter on the west.\nThey are nearly holding still while Venus moves noticeably from\nevening to evening toward Saturn. Around the 10th<\/sup>, Venus\nand Saturn are close with Jupiter below them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jupiter,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By the second half of December, Venus\nhas passed Saturn on its way east of Sagittarius. Jupiter is setting\nright after the sun does and is not seen by northern hemisphere\nwatchers. As Saturn works its way into the sunset in late December,\nVenus moves deep into Capricornus, one of the dimmer constellations.\nThe moon passes by Venus on the 28th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Venus<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pegasus and Cygnus are high, near the\nmeridian, as the night begins. Taurus and Cetus are rising. Look for\nOrion, the famous hunter of winter night skies, not much later. Canis\nMajor rises around midnight. Virgo is a morning riser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mars<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mars and Mercury are somewhat close in\nthe morning as December begins. The red planet is between Virgo and\nLibra. The messenger planet is in Libra’s diamond. Both planets are\nmoving eastward. Mercury is clearly out of the Libra diamond on the\n6th<\/sup> while Mars is heading toward it. See Mars just 0.2\u00b0\nfrom Zubenelgenubi on the 12th<\/sup> as it enters the diamond. A\ntelescope may reveal to you that Zubenelgenubi is a double star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mars<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The moon passes by Mars on the 22nd<\/sup>\nand 23rd<\/sup>. By those dates, Mercury has passed the\nwesternmost stars of Scorpius\u2014Acrab, Dschubba, and Fang. You may\ncatch them rising before the morning light begins. They’ll be above\nand right of the waning crescent moon on the 24th<\/sup>. By the\n25th<\/sup>, Mars is exiting the diamond but not passing close to\nany of the stars that make it. By the end of the month, the red\nplanet and its stellar rival Antares are both visible before sunrise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moon is at first quarter on the\n4th<\/sup>, full on the 12th<\/sup>, at last quarter on the\n19th<\/sup>, and new on the 26th<\/sup> when there’s an\nannular eclipse of the sun visible from the Arabian peninsula, across\nsouthern India, the islands of Maylasia, and just south of the\nPhilippines. Annularity lasts three to three-and-a-half minutes.\nPartial phases are visible in northeast Africa, southeast Europe,\nmost of Asia, and northern Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Annular<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Other moon information for the month:\napogee is on the 5th<\/sup> with a distance of 404,500\nkilometers. Perigee is on the 18th<\/sup> with a distance of\n370,300 kilometers. The moon crosses the equator going north on the\n6th<\/sup>, reaches northern lunistice on the 13th<\/sup>,\ngoes south of the equator again on the 20th<\/sup>, and is its\nfarthest south on the 26th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Occultation<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The moon will pass in front of the\nGemini star Tejat on the 13th<\/sup>. The occultation is visible\nfrom far northeast Asia, Alaska, nearly all of Canada, part of\nGreenland, and the northern \u201clower 48\u201d United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercury is at aphelion on the 30th<\/sup>.\nIts distance from the sun is 0.467 astronomical units, or 69.9\nmillion kilometers at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Geminid meteor shower is expected\nto peak on the 14th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn form a nice trio in the evening sky in the first part of December. Look right after sunset. You’ll see Venus first as the twilight fades. It’s between the other two planets on top of the Sagittarius \u201cteapot\u201d. Saturn is on the east side of the teapot and Jupiter on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}