SKYLIGHTS
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, December 4, 1998.
The Moon passes through its last quarter this week on Thursday,
December 10 in eastern Leo. Earlier, the night of Tuesday, the
8th, the Moon will make a close pass to the south of the first
magnitude star Regulus in Leo, and will actually cover or occult
the star in Florida and Central America. Observers in southern
Georgia will see a remarkable "grazing occultation" at 11:20 PM
EST, in which the star just barely seems to touch the lunar
edge.
The major planets are well spread across the sky. Venus is still
hidden by the Sun, but Jupiter makes up for it with its evening
brilliance. Transiting the meridian to the south around 6 PM, the
planet is now moving in its normal easterly direction among the
stars of extreme eastern Aquarius. Only 30 or so degrees to the
east of Jupiter, find dimmer, though still zeroth magnitude,
Saturn, moving oppositely, or retrograde, against the background of
extreme eastern Pisces, the next zodiacal constellation over. The
next player is Mars. Now in western Virgo, Mars rises around 1:30
AM and appears high in the southeast near dawn.
Great Orion, the classic winter constellation that now crosses to
the south around midnight, is linked in mythology to his two
hunting dogs, Canis Major, lit by brilliant Sirius down and to the
left of Orion, and less-prominent Canis Minor, illuminated by
dimmer, though first magnitude, Procyon up and to the left of
Orion's top bright star Betelgeuse. Far lesser known are the
constellations beneath Orion. Just below the Hunter find two
ragged lines of dimmer stars looking something like an old-
fashioned box kite, which represent Orion's prey, Lepus the Hare.
About 15 degrees below Lepus, if you have a clear southern horizon,
look for the "modern" constellation Columba, the Dove. Invented
around the beginning of the 17th century, Columba is a very pretty
flat triangle of stars that stands out in an otherwise blank area
of sky and represents Noah's dove. Much farther down, and visible
only from latitudes south of about 35 degrees north, lies the sky's
second brightest star Canopus, in Carina, the Keel of the great
ship Argo, which carried Jason in his search for the golden fleece.
