Sky Watch

I'm a naked eye astronomer, as were all astronomers before the invention of the telescope, four centuries ago. I love to watch the sky at night, observing the slow dance of the planets amongst the stars.

Today we get only a dim glimpse of what earlier peoples must have seen in skies unfettered by dust pollution and, in urban areas, the light pollution that bleaches out all but the moon and brightest stars.

Here are some things you can see in the night sky as the never-repeating, never-ending, cosmic dance continues.

Planet Positions:

Mercury is usually hard to see because its stays close to the sun. Its orbits the sun once every 88 days, and so alternates between evening sky and morning sky approximately every 6 weeks. Next evening appearance, mid December, brightest just before low in SW, Christmas.

Venus Venus is bright in the morning sky. But steadily falling back towards the sun each day. She passes behind Sun at end of the year and reappears in early February for one of her illustrious dances as the evening star. As she rises higher in he evening sky, Mars and Saturn approach from the East, all three meeting in August.

Mars Mars rises just after sunset (November) and will be a dominant feature of the winter sky, with Saturn and venus closing on from both sides, the three meeting in early August.

Jupiter, is in the West, approaching the sun in the closing months of the year. As it slips into the sun's glare in late January, Venus rises to take its place.

Saturn has reappeared in the morning sky and will be in the late evening sky by summer, drawing closer to Mars, and meeting Venus for a beautiful triple conjunction around Aug 7.

Bishop Museum. A delightful and more detailed description of this month's night sky.

Sky at a glance for current week.

NASA Solar System Simulator for a view of the planets and their moons at any time, and almost any angle.

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Meteor Showers

Quadrantids. Maximum at January 3-4
Lyrids. Maximum at April 21/22
Eta Aquirids. Maximum at May 5/6
Delta Aquarids. Maximums at July 29 (S hemisphere) and August 13 (N hemisphere)
Perseids. One of best meteor showers of the year. Maximums nights of 11-12 August.
Orionids. Maximum 21 October.
Leonids. Maximum 17-18 November.
Geminids. Maximum 13-14 December.

The Ecliptic
For spotting planets, and following their motion, it is helpful to know where the ecliptic is. The ecliptic is the imaginary line stretching across the sky, along which the sun, moon and planets all appear to move. If, for example, the sun has just set, and the moon is up high, then the ecliptic is the line from the sun (somewhere just over the horizon) through the moon and beyond to the opposite horizon. The planets will also be not far from that line. Or, if you can see two planets, but no moon, the line through the two planets defines the ecliptic. It doesn't take long to get to know where the ecliptic lies, and roughly where to look for planets.

The twelve Zodiacal constellations (Taurus, Pisces, Gemini, etc.) also lie on the ecliptic -- they are the constellations the planets pass through.

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