Night Sky: The Pleiades, the Geminids meteor shower, and more highlights for December

How Many Stars can You See? This is M45 the Pleiades.

The Pleiades is a star cluster that been recorded by many cultures including the Mesopotamians, the ancient Greeks, Japanese, and Native Americans. It is described in both the Bible and the Talmud and 11th-century Arab literature.

Many cultures measured visual acuity by asking someone to look at the Pleiades and count the number of stars they could see. Six was considered average and nine very good.

As you can see, there are more then 9 stars in this cluster. In fact, modern measurements say there are over 1,000 stars in this cluster. Most of these stars are hot, young, blue stars that have formed within the past 100 million years!

M45 is the closest and brightest Messier object. It’s only 450 million lights years away from us. It has a visual magnitude of 1.4, making it easy to see with the naked eye. M45 starts December about 20 degrees above the Eastern horizon in the evening.

M45 is currently passing through a large cloud of dust that causes the beautiful reflection nebulae that appear as patches of blue surrounding many of the stars.

The Pleiades start December about 25 degrees above the Eastern Horizon.

This is NGC 1499, the California Nebula.

NGC 1499 can be found slightly to the north and just above M45. From our viewpoint, NGC 1499 appears to be rather close to M45, but in truth, the California Nebula is about 1,000 light years away from us. It has a visual magnitude of +6.0, which means it might be visible with the un-aided eye on a very dark night, but you are probably going to need a telescope to view it.

What you can look for in December’s Night Skies

December starts with Venus visible about 17 degrees above the south-western horizon and Jupiter about 8 degrees above the eastern horizon.

Venus sets at 7:51 p.m. while Jupiter is visible all night. Saturn will be about 45 degrees above the southern horizon. Neptune is slightly east of Saturn and Uranus is just slightly to the south of Uranus. Mars rises at 8:44 p.m.

The Geminids meteor shower will peak at 1:00 a.m. on December 13. They will appear to originate from the twin stars Castor and Pollux which will be almost directly overhead. Unfortunately, the moon will be nearly full and will probably make the shooting stars difficult to see. But, you might be able to see Geminids action long before the peak date. Some experts claim the Geminids are already active in the Eastern skies starting around 8:00 p.m.

The constellation Orion (M42) also rises at about 6:30 p.m. on December 1.

Moon Phases:

First New Moon is December 1. There is a second New Moon (Black Moon) on December 30.

1st Quarter is December 8

Full Moon is December 15

Last Quarter is December 22