These days, if you look at the evening sky, you can clearly see the planet Jupiter, and the brightest stars are Mirfak and Algol. What is the “track” of the Moon? What other planets and stars can be seen? Specialists of Astronomical Observatory in Bucharest.

The moon is visible in the evening, and on December 19, the First Square phase came, at 20:39. In this phase, the Moon is highest in the sky, south, at sunset, and sets at midnight. On the evenings of December 21, 22 and 24, the Moon passes by Jupiter.

Planets in the sky

Saturn and Jupiter are visible in the evening, and Venus is visible from 4:30 in the morning.

Saturn is only visible a few hours after dark. As soon as night falls, the planet is visible in the south, not very high in the sky, like a lonely star that does not twinkle.

At this time, Saturn is 1.5 billion km away, which is the usual distance.

Jupiter is much better seen because it is closer to us than Saturn, twice as close. You can see it as a very bright star when night falls, high in the southeast sky. It reaches its highest point in the sky at 8:30 p.m. Jupiter sets at 3:30 am. In the evening of December 22, the Moon will be near the planet.

Venus rises three hours before the Sun and is visible to the southeast starting at 4:30. The planet is even brighter than Jupiter, but it is visible quite low on the horizon. To see this, look around 5-5:30 in the morning in the direction of the rising sun.

Now it is at a distance of 165 million kilometers and is the closest planet to us.

On December nights, there are also planets Uranus and Neptune in the sky, but they are not visible to the naked eye.

The sky in the last decade of December

The December evening sky contains constellations that are part of the Perseus myth and stretch from the western horizon to overhead.

The hero, Perseus, is high in the sky in the east, near the zenith (overhead). He turns to Andromeda, whom he saves. Not far from them is the W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, Andromeda’s mother.

The brightest star in Perseus is Mirphax (alpha Perseus) and is easily identified as the bright star below Cassiopeia. The second brightest star in Perseus is called Algol (Eye of the Devil), a star whose brightness changes over time due to the mutual occultation of the two stars. The location of Algol represents the position of the head of Medusa, the monster beheaded by Perseus and used to destroy the sea monster that threatened Andromeda.

The monster is Cetus, whose head is located in the south. The two stars of the constellation are brighter, they are located to the southwest of the Pleiades and closer to the southwestern horizon. The star southwest of the Pleiades is Menkar. It represents the nostril of a whale, and its name means just that: a nostril.

Between Cassiopeia and the star Mirphak is the double cluster Perseus, a cluster of stars 7,000 light-years from the Sun. A spilled spot is visible to the naked eye in this place.

Another character in the story is Pegasus, a winged horse. It is located in the west and can be defined as a large area.

Saturn in Aquarius and Jupiter in Aries are visible in the evening.

Photo source: Dreamstime.com