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A R T I C L E S DECEMBER-JANUARY SKIES Robert Victor rvictormi@earthlink.net Venus reaches spectacular brilliance high in predawn darkness in December and is close enough to Earth for its crescent shape to be detected through binoculars. An especially fine occasion for students to spot Venus in the daytime with unaided eye will come on morning of December 2, as a waning crescent Moon appears nearby, with encore performances on December 31 and January 29 and 30. Jupiter dominates the evening sky this winter, with waxing Moon nearby on December 13 and January 9 and 10. Uranus can be spotted through binoculars in the same field as Jupiter throughout December and January. There’s a total lunar eclipse on the night of Monday, December 20. For residents of the Central and Eastern Time Zones, the eclipse gets underway after midnight on Tuesday morning, December 21. For an illustrated guide to these sky events and more, the Abrams <strong>Planetarium</strong> Sky Calendar and evening star maps for December 2010 and January 2011 are available, along with a finder chart for locating Uranus with binoculars, at www.pa.msu.edu/abrams/CSTADec-JanSkies/. SIGHTING VENUS AT INFERIOR CONJUNCTION Robert Victor Since the sky was very clear and blue [on] Thursday, October 28 in Palm Springs, California, I stood on the south-facing porch of the Tahquitz Canyon Visitor Center during the 11 a.m. (PDT) hour and used the overhanging porch roof to block the Sun, and, using my 10x50 binoculars, searched for Venus to the lower right of the Sun. I did not spot it immediately, as there were many distracting high airborne seeds and silken strands floating by, forward scattering the sunlight in my direction. But after several minutes, I did spot the crescent, horns pointing to the lower right. Once seen, it was easy to keep in view. I next headed to Cahuilla Elementary School, where I set up my Orion SkyQuest XT4.5 Dobsonian reflecting telescope, again under an overhanging roof to safely block the Sun, and quickly found Venus. Using the 25-mm eyepiece (36-power), I remained in the school yard showing the crescent Venus to well over 100 students over the next few hours, ending after 3 p.m., within three hours before the inferior conjunction of Venus which occurred at 6 p.m. PDT. Most of the students had no difficulty in seeing the very thin crescent, which appeared oriented as a “smile.” I [had] been planning to set up the telescope on mornings for daytime viewing of Venus beginning November 29, when the students return from a four-week break in their school year. By then, Venus would be very easy to spot in the daytime, even with the unaided eye. I [was] especially looking forward to December 2, when the Moon will appear nearby, making it easy to find Venus. On many occasions since April 1961, I have observed Venus on or very close to the actual dates of inferior conjunctions in January or in March-April, when Venus passed north of the Sun. For example in March 2009, I observed Venus simply by setting up a telescope at midday in the shade on the north side of a building, using the top of the building to block the Sun. But this is the first time I have observed Venus on the date of an inferior conjunction to the south of the Sun. During my observations on October 28, Venus was 6.0 degrees from the center of the Sun’s disk, and it appeared brighter and easier to see than I expected it to be. At the next inferior conjunction, on the afternoon of June 5, 2012 (date for North America), Venus will transit the Sun’s disk. It will be interesting to find out by observation how close (four days?) before and after the transit a crescent Venus can be observed. In that case, we’ll be able to use the side of a building to hide the midday Sun, looking left of the Sun before conjunction and right of the Sun after (for northern hemisphere viewers). I am reminded of a daytime comet I 17
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