Enjoy bright Jupiter and Venus, and look out for two meteor showers, the Phoenicids and Puppid-Velids
When to use this chart
1 Dec at 00:00 AEDT (13:00 UT)
15 Dec at 23:00 AEDT (12:00 UT)
30 Dec at 22:00 AEDT (11:00 UT)
The chart accurately matches the sky on the dates and times shown for Sydney, Australia. The sky is different at other times as the stars crossing it set four minutes earlier each night.
December Highlights
Recommended equipment: Naked eye
Two meteor showers reach their peak this month. The Phoenicids is active from 28 November to 9 December. Although inconsistent over the years, with its radiant culminating in the early evening and close to new Moon, its peak night of the 2nd should provide many dark hours. The Puppid-Velids are visible in the first two weeks of December. They peak on the night of the 7th and with a four-dayold Moon, the morning skies will be dark with the radiant high in the south.
Stars and constellations
Recommended equipment: Naked eye
Taurus, the Bull is home to the two closest open star clusters. One is the Pleiades, M45, looking compact with its ‘seven sisters’ (stars) covering around 1° across. The other is the more dispersed Hyades – the V-shaped bovine’s face – around 4° across. As the path of the Sun and all the planets passes between these two clusters they form what’s known as the ‘Golden Gate of the Ecliptic’ asterism. The Moon is an exception – with a high inclination it can go around.
The Planets
Recommended equipment: Naked eye
The beacons of Venus and Jupiter dominate the western evening sky, with Jupiter the higher of the two. Between them is Saturn, looking more like a 1st magnitude star. Venus remains visible after twilight for the first three weeks of December, before departing the evening sky as it nears conjunction. Neptune sets around midnight midmonth, followed by Uranus two hours later. Mornings see the return of Mars, as it climbs out of the dawn glow.
Deep-sky objects
Recommended equipment: Small/medium telescope
This month we visit Andromeda, the Chained Princess. Although close to the northern horizon, the following objects attain a similar altitude to the Andromeda Galaxy and can be viewed as twilight ends. The double star Gamma (γ) Andromedae (RA 02h 03.9m, dec. +42° 20’), at 2nd magnitude is visible to the unaided eye. A telescope shows two components of mag. +2.3 and +5.0, coloured yellow and blue and separated by 9.5 arcseconds.
A stroll 5° north of Gamma Andromedae finds the mag. +5.7 open star cluster NGC 752 (RA 01h 57.7m, dec +37° 47’). It’s visible in binoculars, as is the binocular double star 56 Andromedae on the southwestern edge –a pair of 6th magnitude stars, 3 arcminutes apart. NGC 752 is best observed in wide fields, being 1° across and consisting of about 60 well-scattered stars arranged in short curved lines.
CHART: PETE LAWRENCE