Monday, December 01, 2025
December skies 2025
https://soundcloud.com/astrophiz/novemberskyguide224
| December | |
| 5 December 2025 | Perigee Full Moon ("super" Moon) |
| 7 December 2025 | Jupiter near waning Moon (4° apart) in morning sky, forming a line with the bright star Pollux. |
| 14/15 December 2025 | Geminid Meteor shower in the morning, some Moon interference |
| 19 December 2023 | Mercury, the thin Crescent Moon and the bright star Antares from a triangle low in the morning twilight, might need binoculars |
| 22 December 2025 | Earth is at Solstice |
| 27 December 2025 | Nearly First Quarter Moon near near Saturn (4° apart) in the early evening sky |
Moon:
| December 4 | Moon at perigee |
| December 5 | Full Moon (perigee full Moon) |
| December 12 | Last Quarter Moon (ideal for star gazing) |
| December 17 | Moon at apogee |
| December 20 | New Moon (also ideal for star gazing) |
| December 28 | First Quarter Moon |
Meteor Shower:
Geminids December the 14th contends with a last Quarter moon.
| Locations on the same latitude as... | December 12 | December 13 | December 14 (peak) | December 15 |
| Darwin | 7 meteors/hr | 14 meteors/hr | 36 meteors/hr | 29 meteors/hr |
| Brisbane/Perth | 5 meteors/hr | 9 meteors/hr | 23 meteors/hr | 23 meteors/hr |
| Sydney/Adelaide/Canberra | 4 meteors/hr | 7 meteors/hr | 18 meteors/hr | 16 meteors/hr |
Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at roughly the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset).
Stars:
In the Southern sky the dwarf galaxies, the Magellanic clouds, are rising. The Large Magellanic cloud will be in an excellent viewing position in the late evening. The Large Magellanic cloud and the Tarantula nebula are magnificent objects.
If you look due South after astronomical twilight (and hour and a half after sunset) in a dark sky location you will see what looks like two wispy clouds but unlike clouds they don’t move, these are the Magellanic clouds, the dwarf companion galaxies to ours. The largest of the wisps, to the left of due south is the large Magellanic cloud. The Large Magellanic cloud lies at an approximate distance of 163,000 light years from us. The LMC has a prominent bar in its central region, which indicates that it may have previously been a barred spiral galaxy.
A line through Sirius and Canopus carried on will piece the heart of the LMC. Within the hazy disk of the LMC is a fuzzy star, this is the tarantula nebula. While it is not much to the unaided eye, and a mere fuzzy patch in binoculars, in a telescope it is outstanding. It is the most active star-forming region in the 30-odd galaxies including the Milky Way that make up the Local Group In a telescope you can see the spidery appearance for which it is named, a dozen or so incredibly hot massive stars at the centre of long tendrils of hot gas (why not octopus?).
There are also multiple open clusters and nebula and a globular cluster to explore with binoculars, so you can spend quite a bit of time on the LMC alone. In a telescope they are even better. Just south of the Tarantula nebula is a complex of clusters that repays exploration.
As well, the skies feature Orion the Hunter striding across the sky, The distinctive V shape of the Taurus the bull, and the beautiful Pleiades cluster. For us in the southern hemisphere the Pleaides are almost due moth at astronomical twilight. Try counting how many stars you see. Another name for the Pleiades is the seven sisters, can you see seven stars?
The Southern Pleiades, a group of stars clustered around the star theta carina, is now readily visible two hand-spans above the southern cross.
The Christmas holiday season will be a fantastic time to explore our skies.
Labels: Monthly sky, unaideed eye
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