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Another planet joins Saturn in the evening sky. Jupiter is the bright beacon that is appearing in the NE after 9pm and will be about 25X brighter than Saturn further to the west.
The shortest day occurs on December 22 at 10:03. This is the lowest the Sun will appear in our sky. Its short arc over the southern horizon limits daylight, and the amount of the heat we receive from the Sun.
NOTABLE EVENTS
Dec 4 Full Moon
Dec 7 Mercury at greatest morning elongation
Dec 11 Last Quarter Moon
Dec 18 Sun enters Sagittarius
Dec 19 New Moon
Dec 27 1st quarter Moon
MONTHLY TABLE
Main Meteor Showers
Meteor showers are best observed after midnight when our hemisphere is ploughing into the meteor stream. Although the duration of the most active portion of the shower is short, some shower meteors can be seen many days on either side of maximum.
There are about a dozen significant meteor showers each year.
The Geminid meteors will be better seen this year as it is after the last quarter moon.
Dates for the Phases of the Moon
Entries are in Eastern Time and only require time zone correction. Do not use the correction from the “Ottawa-Time” table. Saskatchewan and parts of BC and Ontario do not use daylight savings. In these regions, subtract 1-hour from these times from March 10 to November 3.
Planetary Configurations
When at Opposition, planets will appear on the opposite side of the sky from the Sun – very roughly on the meridian at midnight. Conjunctions are when the planet has the same “longitude” as the Sun. A Superior Conjunction is when the planet is on the other side of the Sun, and an Inferior Conjunction is when it is between the Earth and the Sun. Only Mercury and Venus can be at Inferior Conjunction. Maximum elongation is when Mercury and Venus appear farthest from the Sun in our sky. This occurs either in our morning eastern sky (mor.) or our western evening sky (eve.). Do not apply the Ottawa-correction times to the times in this table.
Prominent Constellations by Seasons
Brightest Stars
