Skywatch Line for Friday, November 29, through Sunday, December 1, written by Sam Salem
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, November 29, through Sunday, December 1, written by Sam Salem.
On Friday, Sun rises at 7:05am and sets at 4:23pm; Moon rises at 5:35am and sets at 3:05pm.
On Friday morning, the waning crescent Moon will hang above the eastern horizon near Spica, the brightest star of Virgo the Maiden, and the bright star Zubenelgenubi in Libra the Scales. The unlit portion of the Moon will be glowing with reflected light from Earth. Look for them about an hour before sunrise.
New Moon occurs on Sunday at 1:21am. New Moons rise and set with the Sun.
On Sunday night, use a telescope to watch the tiny black shadow of Jupiter’s moon Io start crossing Jupiter’s face at 9:02pm, entering on the planet’s eastern edge, closely followed by Io itself 10 minutes later. They depart Jupiter’s opposite edge at 11:14pm and 11:23pm, respectively. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot will be out of sight on the planet’s far side.
Jupiter, magnitude –2.8 in the constellation of Taurus, shines low in the east-northeast as twilight turns to dark. As darkness deepens, watch for Aldebaran and slightly fainter El Nath, Beta Tauri, to come into view right and left of it. Jupiter is 48 arcseconds wide in a telescope and it will remain this big all through the weeks around its December 7th. opposition.
Venus, magnitude –4.1, gleams in the southwest in evening twilight. It now remains up for about an hour after dark.
Mars, magnitude –0.5 in Cancer east of Gemini, rises in the east-northeast around 8pm. It forms the right angle of a right triangle with Castor and Pollux above it and Procyon to its right. Mars is 48° east along the ecliptic from bright Jupiter. Mars shows best in a telescope high toward the southeast or south in the hours after midnight. It has enlarged to 11 arcseconds in apparent diameter. It’s on its way to a relatively distant opposition in mid-January, when it will reach a diameter of 14.5 arcseconds.
Saturn, magnitude +0.9 in Aquarius, glows highest in the south from late twilight through early evening. Fomalhaut twinkles two fists below it.
Uranus, magnitude 5.6 at the Taurus-Aries border, is in the east during evening, about 7° from the Pleiades.
Neptune, magnitude 7.8 under the Circlet of Pisces, is high in the south after dark, 14° east of Saturn.
The W pattern of Cassiopeia now stands on its fainter end high in the northeast in early evening. Watch Cassiopeia turn around to become a flattened M, even higher in the north, by late evening.
Vega still shines brightly well up in the west-northwest after dark. The brightest star above it is Deneb, the head of the big Northern Cross, formed by the brightest stars of Cygnus. At nightfall the shaft of the cross extends lower left from Deneb.