During this final week of 2022, we can observe what I would call "The Christmas Sky."
In many ways there are signs of the holiday season in our current evening sky. At this time of year many bring up the subject of the Star of Bethlehem. If you look low toward the southwest horizon about 30 minutes after sundown, you'll see a brilliant object that might remind you of that fabled apparition. Indeed, it's so bright that appears more like a dazzling beacon as opposed to a star: it's the planet Venus, the brightest of all the planets and the third brightest object in our sky next to the sun and the moon.
Santa will be in the night sky this Christmas. Santa's location can be tracked on Christmas Eve by NORAD.
The Ursid meteor shower shines with good dark sky conditions.
If you have clear skies on Christmas Eve, you will be able to see a trio of stars in the southwest sky. It's a trio consisting of a slender crescent moon roughly 36 hours past a new moon phase and situated off to the moon's right will be Venus and Mercury.
It will be a striking isosceles triangle configuration.
The moon and Venus form the base of the triangle and Mercury marks the peak of it. There is an eye-catching array which will be visible for a short time after sunset. The trio will fall below the horizon by an hour after sundown.
The evening sky is very nice right now. The eastern sky is full of stars. Asterisms are groupings of stars that lie within their boundaries.
The northwest is home to one of the most famous places. In ancient times, it was known as the "Bird", but no one knew what it was supposed to represent. The Northern Cross is a constellation of six stars.
The top of the Cross is decorated with bright ndeb. There is a third magnitude orange star and a fifth magnitude blue star at the foot of the Cross. The Cross can be seen on the northwest horizon at around 8:30 p.m. local time, making it a perfect Christmas symbol.
The Cross is on its side in the sky just before sunrise on Easter morning.
The Three Kings were referred to by the legendary French astronomer Nicolas Flammarion. If we were to consider these three stars as representing the Magi, they would be in the constellation of Cancer.
A manger is a trough or open box that feeds horses or cattle. The baby Jesus was put down in a manger because there was no room at the inn. The manger where Christ was born is represented in the Christmas week sky by Presepe.
The manger can be seen in the middle of the constellation Cancer as a soft fuzzy patch. It is a beautiful object to see with good binoculars or a low power telescope. In 1610 Galileo used his telescope to see a mass of more than 40 small stars.
Three more planets adorn our Christmas evening sky. As the sky becomes completely dark about 90 minutes after sunset, look up from the southwest horizon to see "the lord of the rings," Saturn. The distance between your fist and the horizon is about 10 degrees. Our line of sight is tilted about 14 degrees so a telescope magnifying 30 power or more will reveal the rings.
Jupiter is the largest in our solar system and shines nearly 20 times brighter than Saturn, and it has a telescopic showpiece with clouds bands crossing its disk.
And finally, about one-third up in the east, shining with a fiery orange color is Mars, shining with a radiance quite similar to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Just over three weeks ago, Mars made the closest approach it would make to Earth until the year 2033. Now it is receding and will grow progressively fainter in the coming weeks. But right now, it still stands out in our glorious Christmas sky.
Happy holidays!
There is an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for a number of publications. We encourage you to follow us on social media:
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