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Mars on Dec 16, 2007 »

Sky this Week

 Some things to see in the sky, this week Dec 16 to Dec 22, 2007.

Highlights

  • Bright ISS passes on Thurs at 5:48 pm and Sat at 4:55 pm
  • Mars is closest to Earth on Dec 18 around 5 pm (0.589 AU, 54.94 million miles, or 88.42 million km), apparent diameter of Mars is 15.87 arc sec
  • Comet Holmes is still a great object to view in binoculars
  • Winter solistice Friday, Dec 21 at 11:08 pm 

International Space Station

There are some very good ISS passes in the early evening this week.  The best ones are:

Tues Dec. 18 at 5:06:58 pm ISS appears in the NNW, disappears in the NE at 5:10:10 pm (magnitude -0.3)

Wed. Dec 19 at 5:27:27 pm ISS appears in the NNW, disappears in the ENE at 5:31:29 pm (magnitude -1.2)

Thur. Dec 20 at 5:48:11 pm ISS appears iun the NW, disappears in the ESE at 5:52:40 (magnitude -2.5)

Fri. Dec 21 at 6:09:16 pm ISS appears in the WNW, disappears in the ESE at 6:14:17 (magnitude -0.6)

Sat. Dec 22 at 4:55:02 pm ISS appears in NW, disappears in the ESE at 5:00:38 pm (magnitude -2.4)

Sun

The Sun rises at 7:17 to 7:20 am and sets 4:40 to 4:42 pm this week.  A fair size region 10978 is near the western limb and will rotate from view on Tuesday.  Solar activity is predicted to be at very low levels according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

Moon

The Moon is at first quarter on Monday, Dec 17 at 03:18 am . Its a great week for lunar observing.

PlanetsVenus rises around 4 am in constellation Libra and is very, very bright magnitude at -4.

Mars rises before dark and increases in brightness to magnitude -1.64 and to 15.9 arc sec across. It is in good position for viewing around 8 pm.

Saturn rises 10:11 pm by the end of the week in constellation Leo. It is magnitude +0.93  in brightness.

Dark Sky

Not this weekend, moon interfers all night.

Comets

Comet 17P Holmes is getting larger and dimmer (around magnitude 5)  in constellation Perseus. It is over a degree across and easy to spot in binoculars even in light polluted skies. 

Comet 8P Tuttle is now about magnitude +8.2 in constellation Cassiopea.

Comet 46P Wirtanen is magnitude  +11 in constellation Aquarius. Look for it early in the evening around 6pm.

(See SkyHound.com  or Seiichi Yoshida’s Comet pages for charts and additional information).

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 9:17 am and is filed under Astronomy, Sky this Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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