Planet Scenes December 2022
November Highlight is all Five Planets in the Evening
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December 29 As the year finally draws to a close, Venus and Mercury undergo a nice conjunction low in the west, with Saturn off to the upper left, waiting for his turn with Venus late in the next month. |
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December 25 Christmas Night was again a beautiful, clear evening, affording us another opportunity to capture the planet parade with Moon ~ this time along the Rappahannock River. We see, in order from closest to the Sun to farthest out, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and finally Saturn. |
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December 24 The Moon joined Venus and Mercury for a beautiful gathering on Christmas Eve. On the other side of the sky, Mars continues to retrograde in Taurus near the Hyades. |
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December 23 One day before a spectacular arrangement of the thin crescent Moon with the two inner planets, we see them slowly advancing eastward through Sagittarius, with Mercury approaching the point when it will begin to sink back toward the horizon, but with Venus gradually becoming more and more prominent. |
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December 20 Mercury and Venus improve in visibility to the point where they are both easily visible to the unaided eye in mid-twilight. |
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December 18 Easy viewing of all the major planets in the evening continues as we can see Saturn sinking into the evening twilight, Jupiter still high up near the meridian at dusk, and Mars glowing brightly in the mid-way up in the east as it gets dark. |
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December 11 Venus and Mercury are low in the west just after sunset, but slowly getting better each day so that by the third week of the month they will be noticeably more visible. Here we can barely see Venus in bright twilight, while Mercury is higher and a little easier. |