12/11/2020 – Ephemeris Extra – Venus will hide behind the Moon for W US, Canada and N Pacific Tomorrow

Tomorrow Saturday, December 12, 2020 Venus will be occulted, or covered, by the thin crescent Moon for the area bounded in the map below. The southern boundary is a thin red line denoting that the event will take place in daylight.  For safety sake observe the event from the shadow of a building open to the sky west of the Sun to not inadvertently point binoculars or telescope toward the Sun and cause permanent damage to your eyes. Venus is visible in the daytime. A program like Stellarium will help in locating Venus and determination of the time of the event for your location. Also, for Stellarium, in the configuration window’s Tool tab make sure “Topocentric coordinates” is checked.

The event will NOT be visible from Michigan.

Occultation of Venus World map 12/12/2020. The occultation will be visible within the bounded area. For the area that looks like a lazy figure 8 the occultation will start (on the left) or end as Venus and the Moon rises or sets. For most areas within the bounded area the occultation is a daytime event. Credit Occult4.

 

12/11/2020 – Ephemeris – More on the Geminid meteor shower peaking this weekend

This is Ephemeris for Friday, December 11th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:02, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:11. The Moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 5:33 tomorrow morning.

This weekend and specifically Sunday evening to Monday morning the Geminid meteor shower will be at its peak, with up to 120 meteors appearing an hour in the early morning hours of Monday. The meteors will appear to come from near the star Castor, the northernmost star of the constellation of Gemini the twins. Castor and Pollux are the namesake stars at the head of Gemini. While they will seem to come from a specific point in the sky, they will be seen all over the sky, and be traced back to the point. They are coming in on parallel trajectories, just as straight railroad tracks recede to a point in the distance. Let’s hope for clear skies. The meteor shower lasts all night.

The event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Star Chart for 7 pm, or about 2 hours after sunset. December 13, 2020. Click on image to enlarge. GemR is the location of the Geminid radiant low in the northeast. Click on image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.

All sky chart of the Geminid Radiant 1 am Dec 14, 2020. GemR is the location of the Geminid radiant nearly overhead in the southeast. 

All sky chart of the Geminid Radiant 6 am Dec 14, 2020. GemR is the location of the Geminid radiant in the west.