Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: Actual Astronomy: The Observer’s Calendar for December 2024
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/ ; https://www.deepskyeye.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents The Observer’s Calendar for December 2024. We talk about Mercury at greatest elongation in the Eastern morning sky on December 25th and how to best observe Jupiter just past opposition. We also talk about pairings of the Moon and Venus, Mercury Jupiter and other planets.
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
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Transcript:
Observer’s Calendar for December 2024 on Episode 458 of the Actual Astronomy podcast. I’m Chris and joining me is Shane. We are amateur astronomers who love looking up at the night sky and this podcast is for everyone who enjoys going out under the stars.
Dec 1 Sunday – New Moon Asteroid 13 Egeria at opposition m=9.9
- Gasparis on November 2, 1850. Egeria was named by Urbain Le Verrier, whose computations led to the discovery of Neptune, after the mythological nymph Egeria of Aricia, Italy, the wife of Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome.
Dec 4 Wed. – Early evening Venus 2-degrees above Moon –
Late evening Mars just over 2-degrees from M44
Dec 6th Friday – Moment of Global Darkness occurs when 85% of the global population experience night simultaneously.
According to Date & time .com
Nighttime for Almost Everyone—How Is That Even Possible?
Just like at any other moment, the Sun will illuminate one half of the globe on December 6 at 19:56 UTC. The other half will be dark, and people living there will experience nighttime.
The reason why so many people will be in darkness is that the world’s most populated areas will be on the night side of Earth at that moment. That includes nearly all of Asia, which is home to about 60 percent of all humans.
Meanwhile, the Americas, New Zealand, and most of Australia will be bathed in sunlight. However, while being huge landmasses, relatively few people live there. North and South America combined only make up about 13 percent of our worldwide population.
Dec 7 Saturday – Lunar X & Jupiter at Opposition – What is the X and what does it mean for Jupiter to be at opposition – Images from Research Gate
Dec 8th Sunday – Lunar Straight wall
Dec 14th Saturday – Geminid meteors Best seen in early morning…but moon is within a day of full… – Asteroid 15 Eunomia is at opposition m=8
15 Eunomia is a large asteroid in the middle asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony asteroids, and estimated to contain 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt.
Eunomia was discovered by Gasparis on July 29, 1851, and named after Eunomia, a personification of order and law in Greek mythology. Its historical symbol is a heart with a star on top; it is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0.
Dec 15th Sunday – Full Moon
Dec 21 Winter Solstice
Dec 22 Sunday – Try to spot Uranus from a dark sky site as it’s at m=5.7 this week.
– Ursid meteors best at 5 am , moon at first quarter but might be worth a try ZHR =1- to 50
Dec 23 two Shadows visible on Jupiter for all NA 2:47am EST
Dec 24 – Lunar Curtis X visible in E. NA
Dec 25 – Christmas Day – present this year is Mercury is at greatest elongation 22-degrees from sun in morning sky.
Mercury pairs with the Moon on December 28th…but they are far apart from here Shane
Dec 30th second new moon of the month
No bright comets
Concluding Listener Message: Please subscribe and share the show with other stargazers you know and send us show ideas, observations and questions to actualastronomy@gmail.com
365 Days of Astronomy
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