The Gardens of the night sky 9th to 16th December 2023

The Night Sky 9th to 16th December 2023

This week’s column spans the new Moon on Wednesday (7.32am), so dark skies abound and provide the ability for those in light polluted areas, such as Perth (Thanks Basil, City of Lights? really), to see a little more.

Mercury is heading back towards the Sun, well apparently to use from our perspective on Earth, so get in now, in fact book in Thursday to be outside by 7.35pm when the glow of Sun, Mercury and a sliver of the Moon sit 10 degrees above the WSW vista presenting a tantalising picture for a camera of any sort ….. I always love sunsets with the contrast of the glow and the brilliance of the planetary pinpoints. I have to admit, since the main phase of COVID, I still always think of the McGowan kebabs broadcast that brought a smile during what was dark times. So, maybe again find a Kebab shop on the way to beach to hunt out Mercury.

If you are staying down at the Beach, or anywhere in fact, by 8pm, the dullish planet Saturn should be visible 45 degrees above the WNW.

From dull to….not dull, Jupiter is unmistakable sitting 40 degrees slightly East of due North around this time, by 9pm it is due North and 45 degrees up.

Moving to the wee hours of the morning, the sole early morning rising planet is Venus; find a deckchair facing East to ESE and wait with your brew till around 3am.

One of the most reliable and some say best meteor showers, the Geminids, peaks late Thursday evening or early Friday morning and in some years have seen up to 120 meteors an hour, however from years of experience, the one hour you pick there will be 2 , just be patient. If you paid a gazillion dollars and got a smartphone with an Expert or Pro mode on the camera, you can use it to record meteor showers. Settings vary between the City and Rural areas due to light pollution but play with the following settings ….If you lucky rural folk set the ISO to somewhere between 1600-3200, shutter 15 to 25 seconds and set the focus at infinity and white balance Auto. For you City bound folk, look to ISO 800-1600, shutter 8 to 15 seconds. If you are luck enough to also own a tripod, this is best and a way to not touch the phone, but there are Apps or some phones that allow setting up delays so you don’t get squiggles on you photo; it is important to trial different settings for your sky/location before the peak, in other words, just start trying now. The Geminids radiant is 25 degrees above due North at 2am, 20 degrees above NNW by 4am, always look east of the radiant.

I keep mentioning light pollution. This affects not only our ability to see the night sky, but unchecked it will make it such that our children will not see the sky. Look to joining something like the Australasian Dark Sky Alliance at https://www.australasiandarkskyalliance.org/ or even suggesting the schools get involved.

All screenshots are courtesy of Stellarium planetarium

Zotti, G., Hoffmann, S. M., Wolf, A., Chéreau, F., & Chéreau, G. (2021). The Simulated Sky: Stellarium for Cultural Astronomy Research. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 6(2), 221–258. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.17822

Dr Craig Bowers MP8138.

As that fantastic lady, Veronica Wedgwood said “An educated man should know everything about something and something about everything”