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Wednesday, December 02, 2015

 

The Sky This Week - Thursday December 3 to Thursday December 10

The Last Quarter Moon is Thursday December 3. Jupiter, Venus and Mars form a line in the morning sky. The waning Moon is close to Jupiter on the 4th. The crescent Moon is close to Mars on the 6th and the crescent Moon is close to Venus and comet C/2013 US10 Catalina on the 8th.

The Last Quarter Moon is Thursday December 3.

Evening sky on Saturday December 5 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 21:00 ACST.  The beautiful cluster the Pleiades, the Hyades and Orion . Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Mercury is lost in the twilight.

Saturn is  lost in the twilight.

 The evening sky is now devoid of bright planets until late December, when Mercury and Jupiter enter the evening sky.

But while the evening is devoid of bright planets, the summer constellations of Taurus (with the V shaped cluster the Hyades forming the head of Taurus the Bull and the beautiful Pleiades cluster nearby) Orion the Hunter and Canis Major with bright Sirius, the dog star, climbing above the eastern horizon.

Early morning sky on Tuesday December 8 looking east as seen from Adelaide at 5:00 ACDST showing Jupiter,  Mars, and Venus, The crescent Moon and comet C/2013 US10.  Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time. (click to embiggen).

Jupiter  rises higher in the morning skies and is now easy to see in the pre-dawn dark. 

Mars is higher in the morning skies and is visible in the early twilight.

Venus is easy to see in the morning twilight. It is a  distinct "half Moon" shape and impressive in a small telescope.

Jupiter, Mars, Venus and the bright stars Regulus and Spica form a line in the sky this week. The waning Moon joins the line-up making for some very nice morning sights with The Moon visiting Jupiter, Mars and then Venus.

Comet C/2013 US10 joins the line-up.  It is much fainter than anticipated and at magnitude 6.1, and being low to the horizon, it is probably a telescope only object. However, on the 8th it is below Venus and the thin crescent Moon, and may be visible in good binoculars.

There are lots of interesting things in the sky to view with a telescope. If you don't have a telescope, now is a good time to visit one of your local astronomical societies open nights or the local planetariums.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
 
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/

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