Were you good a good boy or Girl? Did Santa leave those binoculars or tripod under the tree on Christmas Morning? Do not wait, get out there and use then to explore the oldest science and follow in the footsteps of the greats like Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Galileo, Carl Sagan to name a few, you, your children or your grandchildren could be the next polymath. With a very uncertain future for jobs, the skills used in STEM, no matter how early or late you take it up, will arm you for the future.
By the time it’s truly dark, say around 8:30pm, the planet Saturn, famous for its 7 main rings, sits 30 degrees above the western horizon; early astronomers mistook the rings to be moons of the planet. While binoculars will not show you the rings, they do show the planets colour better than just your eyes.
Now, armed with those new binoculars or the addition of a tripod to stead your view, you will open up a whole new world of observing with Jupiter. Found 45 deg. up and slightly West of due North, not only could you possibly see the equatorial banding, its 4 main moons can keep you amused for hours.
Another fascinating object is the trusty Moon. On Sunday, the Moon will be 30 degrees to the NNE and worth at least an hour in binoculars.
Morning risers are still able to gawk at the brilliance of Venus sitting 20 degrees above the eastern vista just before sunrise having popped over the horizon by 3am.
Early this month, the most famous comet of all time, Comet Halley, turned a corner and started heading back to Earth, it is due in July 2061, so if you were born in the 1980’s, put it in your calendar. For me and my fellow professional Astronomers and Astronomical Observers at the Perth Observatory, its last apparition changed our lives in many ways; maybe those upcoming budding stargazers will again discover something spectacular.
Let’s end the year with good news and “Only the French” is a term often bandied around; a consortium has funding for a new low-cost rocket called, wait for it… Baguette One, see penultimate screenshot, if it fails they apparently have a basket of replacements!
Dr Craig Bowers MP8138.
All night sky 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
Astronomy West 
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