Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday November 30th through Sunday December 6th.
The full moon for the month of November was early in the morning hours of Monday the 30th and then we’ll have a waning gibbous moon for the remainder of the week. This full moon is known as the Frost Moon and the Snow Moon.
Jupiter and Saturn are in the southwest shortly after sunset with Jupiter setting at 8:45 p.m. at midweek, with Saturn following just a few minutes later. If you’ve been watching these two planets through the summer and fall, you will have noticed that they are gradually moving closer to one another in our skies. They will be closest to each other in a couple of weeks and will be worth looking at in binoculars or a small telescope so you can see them both at the same time, although they will be low, so you’ll need a good view of the western horizon to catch them.
Mars is up in the southeast at nightfall and is setting at 3:05 a.m. Mars is now at magnitude -1.0 and 14.1 arcseconds in size, down from magnitude -2.6 in brightness and 22.6 arcseconds in size at closest approach two months ago.
Venus is up at 5:05 a.m., still about two hours before sunrise. Mercury is rising at 6:35 a.m. at midweek, about 40 minutes before sunrise.
In space anniversaries this week, Wednesday December 2nd marks 25 years since the launch of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. The spacecraft is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency and was launched to study the outer layers of the Sun, the solar wind, and the interior of the sun through helioseismology. The SOHO spacecraft continues to operate at the L1 Lagrange point and you can view current images and data from the spacecraft online through the NASA website.
All public viewing events on UT campus telescopes are on hold for the remainder of 2020. We will update the website outreach.as.utexas.edu with a new schedule when we are able to resume viewing.
While you’re waiting for in-person telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on Twitter, Facebook and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
