SkyDiary

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Find out what’s up in the night sky:
Upcoming astoronomical events, interesting observations, packed with everything a stargazer needs to know.

Observations are described for the NORTHERN hemisphere and can be made by naked eye, small binoculars or by small telescope.

December 2018

Phases of the Moon

New Moon:	December 07
First Quarter:	December 15
Full Moon:	December 22
Last Quarter:	December 29

Venus

Venus rises in the morning and becomes the "morning star", very bright (around -4.5 mag). You can observe it by naked eye during whole December as a very bright object high in south-eastern sky around 6 a.m. local time.

Mars Observation: Great perihelic opposition 2018

The season for visual observation of Mars comes slowly to its end. The disk diameter is now less than 10 arc-seconds, so to see the South Polar Cap (SPC) or dark albedo features one needs a telescope with lens diameter of 20 cm or larger and a large magnification of order x350 - x400. The SPC is now tiny because there is the summer in the southern hemisphere and the cap sublimates very rapidly.

Article by (C) G. Okša