If you don’t have the eye-protective lenses required, it will be easy to take turns watching the progress of the eclipse with someone who does because the changes are so slow that you won’t miss anything.
At month’s end, 44 minutes will have been added to nighttime. Experience the difference as darkness falls earlier each evening and lasts later into the morning.
You’ll know Arcturus by remembering to “arc to Arcturus” – simply follow the curve of the Dipper’s handle until you arrive at a big, orange star, the second brightest star in northern skies, second only to Sirius the Dog Star.
When clock time springs ahead an hour, not-so-early risers may look out a southwest-facing window at dawn to find star-like Jupiter rather low to the horizon.
During the months on either side of the spring and autumn equinoxes, there’s an elusive phenomenon, the zodiacal light, a glowing cone of light that is visible only in very clear and very dark skies.
Every morning during the span of this post, it is worth the effort to be at a location with a west-southwest view an hour before sunrise to see the pairing of Jupiter with Virgo’s brightest star, bluish Spica.
Although moonlight will screen out a view of all but a fraction of the shooting stars in the Geminid meteor shower, “a patient observer may be able to spot 20 or so per hour, even from urban locations,” according to the United States Naval Observatory writer.
Cinching evening darkness, new moon falls on the 29th, followed by evenings enhanced by a waxing crescent moon that sets early leading to long, dark, moonless nights.
The Orionid meteor shower, its radiant appearing to be at the upper left of the constellation for which it is named, is forecast to be active from about the 19th through the 22nd, peaking before dawn on the 21st.
On Friday and Saturday, the 7th and 8th, follow a robust crescent moon from midafternoon in the southeast until it completes its arc before midnight in the southwest.
There’s much more to lure us outdoors at 4 a.m.: Between catching shooting stars, skim the southern skyline to see one of the most compelling constellations, Scorpius the Scorpion, accented by brilliant, red-orange Mars and golden Saturn.
