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Celestial Star Show On New Year's Eve
December 31, 2008 |
| Vedic
Astrology Diary Archives |
By Vaughn
Paul Manley, M.A.
Here's some interesting information about a New Year's Eve celestial
star show that's happening tonight just after sunset. It's a
conjunction of the Moon and Venus clearly visible in the western
sky, with the conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter just below
it closer to the horizon. Both of these conjunctions are within
one or two degrees! Hopefully this will be viewable with no
cloud cover because it ought to be a special sight to ring in
the New Year 2009! Could these tight conjunctions between the
benefic planets be a positive omen for the next year? I certainly
like to think so, especially after such a rocky year we've had
in 2008.
Here's an article about the celestial show from Yahoo! writer
Robert Roy Britt:
A delightful display of planets and the moon will occur on New
Year's Eve for anyone wishing to step outside and look up just
after sunset. Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars,
will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern
sky. It'll be visible -- impossible to miss, in fact -- just
as the sun goes down, assuming skies are cloud-free.
Soon thereafter, Mercury and Jupiter will show up hugging the
south-southwestern horizon (just above where the sun went down)
and extremely close to each other. Jupiter is very bright and
easy to spot; Mercury is faint and harder to see, but it'll
be apparent by its location just to the left of Jupiter. Jupiter
and Mercury will set less than an hour after the sun, so timing
your viewing just after sunset is crucial. You'll also need
a location with a clear view of the western horizon, unobstructed
by buildings, trees or mountains.
All the planets, along with the moon and sun, traverse an arc
across our sky called the ecliptic, which corresponds to the
plane in space that they all roughly share. For this reason,
you could draw an imaginary line from the general location of
Venus and the moon, down through the other two planets, and
the line would point to where the sun went down. This line could
also initially help you find Jupiter and Mercury.
Weather permitting, you can get a preview of the sky show on
Tuesday, Dec. 30. On this evening, the planets will be in nearly
the same place they'll be on Dec. 31, but the moon will be midway
between Venus and the Mercury-Jupiter pairing.
One last trick:
Venus is so bright you can see it during daylight if you know
where to look. Given Venus' proximity to the moon on New Year's
Eve, this would be an excellent moment -- just before sunset
-- to use the moon to help you find Venus and gain bragging
rights for being one of the few people to be able to claim seeing
more than one planet during the daytime (Earth being the other
one).
Copyright 2010. Vaughn Paul Manley.
All Rights Reserved. |
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