Winter is Near

Friday, December 1 marks the start of meteorological winter. This is just a convenient way for weather forecasters to keep the seasons straight.

We have nice dark skies now at 7 p.m. Face southsouthwest to see pale Saturn as it heads west. Use binoculars to see the indication of the rings and the big moon Titan.

Jupiter dominates the east in the early evening. It is the brightest object in the sky until the waning gibbous Moon rises after 9 p.m.

Face east to view Jupiter. Move up to find the large “baseball diamond” of the Great Square of Pegasus the Flying Horse. It is almost overhead.

Find “third base” in Pegasus then move left passing two stars. With binoculars, move up to see the fuzzy spot of the giant Andromeda Galaxy. This is one of the best binocular objects in the sky.

From the Andromeda Galaxy, look to the left to see the “W” shape of Cassiopeia turned on its left edge. The much fainter portion of the Milky Way passes through here. Explore the many star clusters in the area with binoculars.

Locate the bottom leg of Cassiopeia and look below it.

Can you see a distinct fuzzy spot? Now use binoculars on the fuzzy spot. It is the famous Double Cluster of stars.

The Double Cluster is a visual pairing of two open star clusters called NGC 869 and 884. The lower cluster contains several old red stars. Take your time to explore this cluster and look for stars that appear orange compared to the other surrounding stars.

The constellation below Cassiopeia is Perseus. The brightest star is Mirfak. The rest of the constellation resembles two loose strings of stars leading down and right from Mirfak.

The star at the end of the right-hand string is Algol. We will look at it in two weeks.

By 6 p.m., the first bright star of winter is above the horizon. Face northeast to find bright Capella in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer.

Take time to enjoy and observe the cold and clear winter sky.

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