Saturday December 7, 2024

Jupiter at Opposition (all night)

On Saturday, December 7, Jupiter will reach opposition while it gleams
brightly between the horns of Taurus and 7.5 degrees to the northeast of the bright star Aldebaran. At opposition, planets rise in the east at sunset and cross the sky all night long before setting in the west at sunrise. Jupiter will be at its minimum distance from Earth for this year of 380.1 million
miles (611.8 million km) or 34 light-minutes, boosting its brilliance to magnitude -2.8. Viewed in a telescope, the planet will display a generous,
48.2 arc-seconds-wide disk striped with brown equatorial bands. Around opposition, Jupiter and its four large Galilean satellites frequently eclipse and occult one another, and cast their round, black shadows on the planet - singly and in pairs. The Great Red Spot will cross the planet's disk for a few hours on every second or third night. Mars Enters Retrograde (overnight)

On Saturday, December 7, Mars' easterly orbital motion through the stars of Cancer will slow to a stop in order for it to begin a westerly retrograde loop that will last through its mid-January opposition and into late February. Tonight the bright, reddish dot of Mars will be positioned in the eastern evening sky in Cancer, just above the large Beehive Cluster and below the bright "twin" stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux. Over the coming weeks, you can watch Mars travel upwards (celestial west) towards those stars. Retrograde loops occur when Earth, on a faster orbit closer to the sun, passes more distant solar system objects "on the inside track", making them appear to move backwards across the stars for a while. Mars' loop will cover almost two fist widths, or 19 degrees of the celestial sphere. Moon Moves Past Saturn
(evening)

On Saturday evening, December 7 in the Americas, the waxing crescent moon will shine about 6 degrees to the west of Saturn. The pair will be due south after dusk and then set in the west around 11 p.m. local time. On Sunday night, the half-illuminated first quarter moon will hop east to shine to Saturn's upper left. In the interim, observers located in a zone extending from eastern Indonesia and the Philippines, and northeast across most of Japan to the Aleutian Islands can see the moon occult Saturn on Sunday evening. Use an app like Starry Night or Sky Safari to look up the occultation timings for a specific location.

(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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