Planet Scenes December 2024
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December 30: Venus & Saturn over Fredericksburg Venus and Saturn are closing together in the evening sky, here seen over the skyline of Fredericksburg, Virginia, with the Rappahannock River in the foreground. |
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December 26: Mars Mars is slowly increasing its speed in moving back westward towards Gemini. Our view here is mid-evening, around 22:00 hours local time (EST), so the arrangement of the constellations shows Cancer below Gemini because they are still rising. The second thumbnail goes to a special page to compare the movement of Mars in the last week. |
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December 23: Mercury and the Blasé Star Mercury is in the midst of its best morning apparition of 2024, currently at an elongation of over 21° from the Sun and shining at magnitude -0.30. While waiting for Mercury to rise higher above the Rappahannock River, I checked in on T Coronae Borealis, the supposed Blaze Star, but it appears to have still not erupted. |
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December 22: Planets, Planets, Planets We have multiple views of Venus and Saturn in the evening twilight, as well as Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus. Some views were obtained in King George County near the quarry and aggregate excavation area across from the landfill. Check out the "hovering" technique in the Venus page at the third link! |
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December 20: Venus, Saturn, and Neptune It is only now beginning to be apparent that we are approaching a planetary gathering in the evening sky ~ Venus is now clearly moving eastward toward Saturn's position, or alternatively Saturn is sinking toward the horizon every day, where it will seem to pass the seemingly stationary (with respect to the horizon) Venus in mid January. It cannot be seen without binoculars or a telescope, but Neptune is also in the scene, to the upper left of Saturn. |
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December 19: Mars Begins Retrograding Mars has begun retrograde motion (westward against the stars) in earnest now. Here we see Mars well north of the ecliptic and upper left of the Beehive Cluster, which is obscured by the two fir tree branches from different trees that come together. |
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December 11: Mars in the Beehive Mars has been hovering near M44, the Beehive Cluster, for several weeks durign this period of time when it is beginning its retrograde motion toward opposition in mid January 2025. |
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December 5: Jupiter and Uranus The night before its opposition, we took the opportunity to snap a picture of Jupiter situated in central Taurus; Uranus, just on the right edge of the image, has almost moved back into Aries. |
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December 3: Moon and Venus A month after the nice Venus - Moon pairing, we of course get another one, although this evening is only the prelude to the much closer arrangement tomorrow evening. Here we see two different scenes, one down at the Rappahannock boat dock and the other angled against a large fir tree in our neighborhood. |
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