{"id":848,"date":"2022-12-03T23:33:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T23:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=848"},"modified":"2022-12-03T23:33:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T23:33:10","slug":"december-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/december-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Venus\nand Mercury are evening objects and hard to see as the month starts.\nObservers close to the equator and in the low southern latitudes have\nthe best view of Mercury pulling up higher than Venus alongside the\nstars of Sagittarius. Mercury is close to Kaus Borealis (the northern\nbow star) on the evening of the 10th<\/sup>.\nVenus passes the star on the 14th<\/sup>\nas Mercury goes by Nunki. Mercury reaches greatest elongation on the\n21st<\/sup>\nhaving made it 20.1\u00b0 into the evening sky. A thin crescent moon will\nbe near the two planets on the 24th<\/sup>.\nMercury’s turning around and Venus is catching up to it. The two\nplanets are 1.4\u00b0 apart on the 29th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturn\nmoves slowly and directly among the eastern stars of Capricornus this\nmonth, well above Mercury and Venus in the west. It’s chose to\nNashira by month’s end. A crescent moon passes them on the 26th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nslightly gibbous and waxing moon is by Jupiter as December begins.\nThe big planet is another slow direct mover this month. It’s near\nPisces and above Diphda, a star in Cetus. See them close to the\nmeridian at sunset. The moon’s at first quarter as it passes by\nJupiter on the 28th<\/sup>\nand 29th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe east at sunset, Mars is a third of the way from Elnath to\nAldebaran. The red planet is retrograde and heading toward the\nPleiades. It won’t make it all the way to the cluster before it turns\naround next month. Much of North America and Europe get a splendid\nview of the full moon hiding Mars as the planet’s at opposition. The\nevent is on the evening of the 7th<\/sup>\nin the westernmost visibility zone and on the morning of the 8th<\/sup>\nin the easternmost parts. The moon’s disk will cover the red planet\nfor an hour or more for observers deepest in the zone. To the naked\neye, the planet will dim until it disappears over the course of a\nminute and then brighten up as it reappears on the other side of the\nlunar disk. In a telescope, many viewers could see an ice cloud\naround the northern Martian pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orion\nand Gemini are fine sights rising in early evening. Leo rises late\nevening. The moon passes through Leo just before it’s at last quarter\nin Virgo on the 16th<\/sup>.\nSee the waning thick crescent close to Spica on the morning of the\n18th<\/sup>.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nGeminid meteors are expected to peak around the 14th<\/sup>.\nThe shower is associated with an asteroid that many scientists think\nwas a comet nucleus. There’s no comet dust left give it the normal\ncomet look with a coma or tail as it goes close to the sun. But the\nasteroid itself, and not long lost comet dust, may be the source of\nthe meteors. This shower wasn’t known until the 1800’s and radar\nstudies of the particles show they are dense like rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earth’s\nsolstice is on the 21st<\/sup>\nat 21:49 UT. Mars has its northward equinox on the 26th<\/sup>.\nVenus is at aphelion the same day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moon\ninformation for this month: Full on the 8th<\/sup>,\nlast quarter on the 16th<\/sup>,\nnew on the 23rd<\/sup>,\nand first quarter on the 30th<\/sup>.\nApogee at 405,900 km is on the 12th<\/sup>.\nPerigee at 358,300 km is on the 24th<\/sup>.\nThe moon goes north of the equator on the 2nd<\/sup>.\nIt’s at northern lunistice 27.4\u00b0 from the equator on the 9th<\/sup>.\nIt goes south again on the 17th<\/sup>.\nSouthern lunistice at 27.4\u00b0 is on the 23rd<\/sup>.\nAnd it goes north of the equator again on the 29th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venus and Mercury are evening objects and hard to see as the month starts. Observers close to the equator and in the low southern latitudes have the best view of Mercury pulling up higher than Venus alongside the stars of Sagittarius. Mercury is close to Kaus Borealis (the northern bow star) on the evening of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-61"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","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=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":849,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}