This Week's Sky at a Glance, December 4 – 12 [Jupiter-Saturn very close together, Mars very bright

Sky & Telescope Magazine ^ | December 4, 2020 | Alan MacRobert

[ETL]

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4 [basically the same as today (Sunday), tomorrow, and next few days]

Bright Jupiter and Saturn are closer together now (1.8° apart).

Jupiter and Saturn are closing toward their record-breaking conjunction on December 21st, when they will appear only 0.1° apart.

That’s about the width of a toothpick at arm’s length!

https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/this-weeks-sky-at-a-glance-december-4-12-2/

[ETL]

If this isn’t enough, about halfway across the sky from Jupiter and Saturn toward the east is the planet Mars. Whereas Jupiter and Saturn appears as bright white stars, Jupiter by far being the brighter, Mars appears a yellowish orange. This is due to it’s rusty iron-bearing surface geology.

As for distances away from earth at this time, Mars is currently about 65 million miles from earth, Jupiter 536 million, and Saturn 990 million.

In addition to the planets, depending on your location, there will be at least one visible pass of the International Space Station (ISS) tonight and in the days to come.

ISS appears as a bright white ‘star-like’ object moving slowly across the sky at about the apparent rate of a high-flying airplane. Unlike airplanes, there are no colored or blinking with ISS, as all of its light is reflected sunlight.

For info on ISS sightings from your specific location, go to the following website and provide your general location. Then, from the HA home page, look for “Satellites”. Under that you will find “ISS” (it doesn’t say “International Space Station”)

For an excellent sky map (on the same website), look for “Sky chart (old version)”. You can adjust it for any date or time you wish by changing the settings beneath the map. I prefer viewing the map with a white background, as opposed to the default dark blue background.

heavens-above.com
https://www.heavens-above.com/

[ETL]

Sorry for the large images.

I wasn't able to resize them via the image url as in other cases, and I no longer have an image hosting account with any such website. Need to find a new and reliable one.

Below, Dec 16th, crescent moon enters the picture...

[ETL]

Astronomy ping.

[BipolarBob]

In other news, CNN reports the sky is falling.

[gw-ington]

In other news, CNN reports the sky is falling.

... dragged down by the sheer weight of Ashleigh The Lion (paypal me, you h-white demons!).

[AFB-XYZ]

Talk about a hunka hunka burnin’ love ....

[BipolarBob]

Oh, isn’t she a beauty?

[MtnClimber]

I can see the accretion disk.

[MtnClimber]

Thanks for the ping. I noticed Saturn and Jupiter last night. They are more to the west so they are behind trees from where I was looking. Getting much closer.

[zadox]

Thanks for the post. I've been watching them almost every night. It is going to be a fantastic conjunction!

I resized the images a bit below ...

[V_TWIN]

In before the Uranus jokes 😂

[proud2beconservativeinNJ]

Thank you. ....heading to a field with my hubby to do some star gazing. Space station is due here at 6:34.

[ETL]

Thank you! I’ll use them next time, if that’s ok with you?

I compare the two urls, mine and yours, and I see that the only difference is “width=”50%” added to the end of it.

Is this all that it takes to resize an image?
I’ll try it myself later. Just now got home.

Thanks again.

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From here in New York City, there were 2 passes. I missed by a minute or so getting to a good spot to view the first one, which was a little before 5PM here. However, I did still catch a minute or 2 of the pass. The second pass, 90 mins later, at about 6:30PM, the one one you went out to observe, faded out before completing the pass. This was because it had entered the earth’s shadow. The earth basically got in the way at that point and blocked the sun’s light from reaching ISS. Did you, in New Jersey, see it go dark in mid-pass? I didn’t hang around for that 2nd pass. Too friggin cold.

[ETL]

You’re welcome. It’s incredible knowing that, although they are so close together in the sky, they are actually half a billion miles apart, Jupiter at about 530 million from earth, Saturn ~900 million.

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmark.

[zadox]

aye, that is all it takes:

< img src="something" width="something" height="something">

I like to use % but you can use px if you like, sometimes you don't need to adjust height - I think most browsers set it to "auto" if it's not listed

[MtnClimber]

It is nice that we get to see these bodies move. The stars move too, but none of us lives long enough to perceive the movement.

[Uncle Miltie]

In what month does the full moon rise from the most southerly point on the horizon?

I have a certain picture to catch when it does.

If you know, please tell me.

[ETL]

Most image urls already have height and width parameters. But, for some reason, in recent times, when I’ve attempted to change them, either nothing happens and the image remains the same size, or the image doesn’t show up at all. And I used to often adjust my posted images this way. Can’t understand why it’s different now.