This column was provided by San Benito County resident and amateur astronomer David Baumgartner as part of a local series on astronomy. Lea este articulo en español aquí.
What a great month for stargazing. You will be busy just trying to get it all in. We have the Geminid meteor showers, four Planets that can be seen with binoculars or a small telescope. If that’s not enough, then we have two comets coming your way. And of course
all of you that are fortunate to have access to a larger telescope will be able to see countless deep sky wonders this month.
So, you missed the Leonid meteor showers on the weekend of the 17th of last month, and you are tired of listing to people talk about what a great time they had watching the show. Well, you have a second chance. The Geminids are coming your way on the evening and morning of the 14 th this month. This is a great meteor shower that tends to be bright and at a medium speed. To make it even more enjoyable this will occur within a couple days of the new moon, which creates ideal conditions for observing. In the Hollister area you should expect to see 15 to 20 meteors per hour.
But if you are lucky enough to get down south to the Pinnacle’s area you should see four times that amount. But with meteor showers you just don’t know what to expect from year to year. But I’m sure it will be worth your while. The radiant, or point from which the meteors appear from, lies just north of the constellation Gemini. So get your astronomy books out to see where the twins are located. The showers are visible for most of the night, but shower rates will peak for a few hours after midnight. So bundle up good against the cold, stay up late and enjoy them for yourself so you won’t have to listen to everyone else rave about them the next day.
I hope you had a chance to see the Annular Solar Eclipse where the moon blocked out part of the sun for much of the Western Hemisphere. If you really wanted to get into it, you could have flown up to Oregon with me to witness the full eclipse along with the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is caused when the moon is slightly farther away from Earth in its monthly orbit and does not quite cover the entire sun and leaves an impressive bright ring
around the edge of the moon, called The Ring of Fire. One warning, you still needed to use proper filters at all times because the moon will not block out all the sun’s blinding light.
If you don’t know how to look at the eclipse properly, always talk with someone who has had experience in doing so. It is a great site when looked upon it the right way. If staying here was the best you could do, you still were able to see the Moon block about 80% of
the Sun’s view.
But I can feel you envying me because I had the chance to witness this great event at total eclipse. Well hold off here for just a moment until you hear the rest of the story. I was lucky to be able stay with my niece and nephew who thought I came up to visit them, I believe they figured it out on their own though, why I was really there. The center line of the eclipse went right over their city of Newport on the coast so it was quite handy
for me to witness the total eclipse. The only concern I had was the chance of inclement weather that usually follows along the coast which would make it that much harder to view the eclipse. But I was confident that this was not going to be a problem and that I
was not to worry.
So, the morning before the event I went outside in the parking lot of the townhomes at the same time that the eclipse was to occur the following morning. I wanted to make sure that I was going to setup in the perfect location to witness and take some great photos to
take home with me to show off to my astronomy buddies.
As thirty minutes goes by with me staring up at the sky looking like an old man lost searching for who knows what, this sweet little old neighbor shows up about twenty feet away. I say old, she was probably younger than I. It seemed that she was as close as she
wanted to get to me. After a couple of tense moments, she says, can I help you old timer? Are you alight? I could see what she was concerned about, so not wanting to let this moment pass without taking advantage of it, I said; is breakfast ready? The look on her
face was to die for. I’m sure she was wondering what should be her next move, is this man dangerous? She never did get any closer than her original twenty feet from me.
I never convinced her of anything different than her first impression of me was. She slowly went back into her townhouse, so I thought that I had better get back into the house before the police showed up.
The reason I even mentioned this strange story is because this story happened to be the highlight of my trip to Oregon. For the next morning sure enough, the clouds came in eliminating any chance whatsoever of witnessing my Solar Eclipse. By this time I was
visited by twenty or so neighbors, including my sweet lady of yesterday’s meeting, still keeping her twenty feet from me, hoping to witness the event of the eclipse. It all turned out just fine. I got to visit with my relatives, as intended, and got to see some pretty clouds along with spending a little time with my new friend at twenty feet.
When was the last time you got a chance to see a comet? Well, comet 62P/Tsuchinshan1 is predicted to glow brighter than many messier galaxies and is a welcome site in any size scope under dark skies. Plan on staying up until 1am to get a good look at this
comet rising in the east above Regulus in the constellation Leo. Go back to your books and find the constellation Leo in the eastern sky and check it out each night for movement among the stationary stars.
If you are looking for an evening comet here is 12P/Pons-Brooks moving past the star Vega. You will need a scope 8” or better to catch this 10th magnitude fuzzy comet.
Now jot down these dates so you won’t forget. Try to understand what you are looking at and see if the wonders of the sky don’t make you feel just a little insignificant.
Happy Star Gazing.
December 2023
Dec 4 Moon is at apogee (251,249 miles from Earth
Dec 5 Moon at last Quarter
Dec 9 Moon passes 4° south of Venus
Dec 12 New Moon
Dec 13 Moon passes 4° south of Mercury
Dec 14 Geminid meteor shower peaks
Dec 16 Moon is at perigee (228,603 miles from Earth)
Dec 17 Moon passes 2° south of Saturn
Dec 19 Moon passes 1.3° south of Neptune
Dec 19 First Quarter Moon
Dec 21 Winter Solstice occurs
Dec 22 Moon passed 3° north of Jupiter
Dec 23 Moon passes 3° north of Uranus
Dec 26 Full Moon