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ScienceCasts: Christmas Sky Show

Saturday, December 22, 2012 16:40

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(Before It's News)

This Christmas, the Moon and Jupiter are converging for a heavenly sky show. Jupiter and the Moon are only a degree or two apart, depending on your location (in the Americas) and the time of evening. If you watch through binoculars, you can see Aldebaran right nearby as well as stars of the big, loose Hyades cluster in their background.

Don’t miss Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (enormous storm big as twice as our planet) – it will be in the middle of the giant planet and extra-special chance for backyard observers. Jupiter climbs to dominate the high eastern and southeastern sky in the evening, with orange Aldebaran 5° below it and the Pleiades twice as far to its upper right. Jupiter is highest in the south around 10 p.m. local time. In a telescope it’s still a big 47 arcseconds wide.