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APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:09 am
by APOD Robot
Highlights of the North Winter Sky
Explanation: What can you see in the night sky this season? The featured graphic gives a few highlights for
Earth's northern hemisphere. Viewed as a clock face centered at the bottom, early (northern) winter sky events fan out toward the left, while late winter events are projected toward the right. Objects relatively close to
Earth are illustrated, in general, as nearer to the cartoon figure with the telescope at the bottom center -- although almost everything pictured can be
seen without a telescope. As happens during any season,
constellations appear the same year to year, and, as usual, the
Geminids meteor shower will peak in mid-December. Also as usual, the
International Space Station (ISS)
can be seen, at times, as a bright spot
drifting across the sky after sunset. Less usual, the Moon is expected to
pass nearly in front of several planets in early January. A treat this winter is
Comet 46P/Wirtanen, already
bright, will pass only 36 lunar distances from the Earth in mid-December, potentially making it
easily visible to the unaided eye.
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:54 am
by eyesoars
'aline'? Maybe 'align'?
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:28 am
by aussie phil
Is there any chance of a link to the southern sky or an acknowlegement that there is a world below the equator? Thanks Aussie Phil
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:13 pm
by gheyer98
Just curious where this chart was originally created. It's not just aline, one of the descriptions is entirely in Spanish. (I think.) Although Google says that align in Spanish is alinee, not aline, so that's puzzling, too.
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:40 pm
by NateWhilk
gheyer98 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:13 pm
Just curious where this chart was originally created. It's not just aline, one of the descriptions is entirely in Spanish. (I think.) Although Google says that align in Spanish is alinee, not aline, so that's puzzling, too.
Yeah, the note for Feb. 10 is odd. That's the closest approach of Moon and Mars for that month. "Marte" is the Spanish name of "Mars", of course. I searched for "martemoon", but it only shows up in things like user ids and image names, such as martemoon.jpg. There are a few occurrences of "marte moon" but they don't seem to have any special significance.
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pm
by Fred the Cat
aussie phil wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:28 am
Is there any chance of a link to the southern sky or an acknowlegement that there is a world below the equator? Thanks Aussie Phil
Yes, but you may have to
pay for
it. I'd like to step outside
and see it too.
At least we'll both be able to see the
comet.
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:17 pm
by Chris Peterson
Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pm
At least we'll both be able to see the
comet. :thumb_up:
You can see it now. I stepped outside last night with a pair of binoculars and it jumps out, a massive fuzzy blob that fills a large part of the binocular field. That thing is huge and it's bright. Once I picked it out with the binoculars, I had no problem seeing it with averted vision (but I have very dark skies here).
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:26 pm
by Chris Peterson
NateWhilk wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:40 pm
gheyer98 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:13 pm
Just curious where this chart was originally created. It's not just aline, one of the descriptions is entirely in Spanish. (I think.) Although Google says that align in Spanish is alinee, not aline, so that's puzzling, too.
Yeah, the note for Feb. 10 is odd. That's the closest approach of Moon and Mars for that month. "Marte" is the Spanish name of "Mars", of course. I searched for "martemoon", but it only shows up in things like user ids and image names, such as martemoon.jpg. There are a few occurrences of "marte moon" but they don't seem to have any special significance.
It's just the Spanish,
Conjunción de la luna y Marte, and its English translation,
Moon near Mars, with a missing space between the two. A copy-and-paste error in preparing the English version, I imagine.
The same graphic is available in five different languages at the universe2go.com website.
_
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:10 pm
by neufer
Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:17 pm
Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pm
At least we'll both be able to see the
comet.
You can see it now. I stepped outside last night with a pair of binoculars and it jumps out, a massive fuzzy blob that fills a large part of the binocular field. That thing is huge and it's bright. Once I picked it out with the binoculars, I had no problem seeing it with averted vision (but I have very dark skies here).
Re: APOD: Highlights of the North Winter Sky (2018 Dec 05)
Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2018 7:36 pm
by Fred the Cat
Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:17 pm
Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:57 pm
At least we'll both be able to see the
comet.
You can see it now. I stepped outside last night with a pair of binoculars and it jumps out, a massive fuzzy blob that fills a large part of the binocular field. That thing is huge and it's bright. Once I picked it out with the binoculars, I had no problem seeing it with averted vision (but I have very dark skies here).
I went out last night to look but too much haze or light pollution. Maybe that will improve
Jan 21st? The comet should be
close to Capella . Could that make for an interesting photo-op should conditions and locations coincide