Caoimhín's Content

As promised, today we are going to take a look at a couple of specific nights. Just at the end of December, there are a couple of dates where people may be staying up late or getting up early. We’re going to take a look at the 24th, 25th and 31st into the 1st, Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Morning.

Starting with sunset on the 24th, viewing things from a city like Cork, here in Ireland. As the Sun goes down, we have the Moon in the sky as a narrow waxing crescent. As we move from the 24th through to the 25th, the Moon will get more full and it will be a nice half Moon in between the 25th and the 31st, on the 27th. This is one of the best phases of the Moon to observe or take photos of. By the 31st, it’s not quite a full Full Moon, but a wide waxing gibbous Moon. Those are the phases of the Moon that we have coming up for that particular week. As the Sun sets, we’ll see the same familiar set of constellations in the sky. We’ve got Pegasus up nice and high above Saturn in the south. Very soon after the sky actually gets dark, at almost 7 o’clock, not even 7 o’clock, and we’ve got Orion, Jupiter, Gemini and Saturn all in the sky together. Moving through to the morning of the 25th, if you are up early in the morning on the 25th, you may still have a chance, just barely, to catch Mercury, one of the last chances this year. A little bit earlier in the morning, at 5:40, we’ve still got that very clear shape of Leo, Boötes, Corvus and Virgo, all of those familiar constellations in the sky.

I think the night of the 24th into the morning of the 25th may be the popular night for staying up late, but we will go through again and look at the night of the 25th itself. Again going with almost 7 o’clock in the evening, we’ve still got the Moon, Saturn and all of those same constellations in the sky, By 7 Jupiter is up in Gemini, and coming through to morning time it will be similar things. Taking a look at the sky a little bit past midnight, Jupiter is up nice and high. It’s coming up to its opposition in January, so it is going to be easy to see just a little after midnight is when it will reach its highest. We’ve got Orion very clear as well as being nice and high, and Leo in the sky as well. Again, going through to the morning, we’ll have those same shapes in the sky. Mercury will be really getting tough to see there as we come through to the morning of the 26th.

Coming all the way back to sunset, we have passed the shortest day of the year. As we move forward to the 31st, New Year’s Eve for many, the sky is going to be a little bit brighter for a little bit longer. It will take just a little bit longer before the sky really darkens up. All the same, at just 5:50 the sky is reasonably dark. The Moon now has moved over to between Jupiter and Saturn, and if we take a closer look, very close to the Pleiades. There’s a good chance that from other locations, the Moon would have occulted the Pleiades, but doesn’t look like that’s going to be an option for us here in Ireland. The Moon isn’t full, but it’s close enough to full, enough to keep the sky much brighter all through the night. Just coming up to 10 o’clock, the Moon is at its highest. The Moon would be at its highest at midnight if it was full, but it’s not, so we’re getting it just that little bit earlier and it’s really keeping the sky extra bright.

If we head out to the countryside, that difference would be even more noticeable. If you are heading out to the countryside, to visit relatives perhaps, at around this time of year it’s a great chance for comparison. If we come back to the 24th, it’s much darker, a fantastic night to head out to the countryside, there will be so many faint things visible. Even Uranus is practically visible, and Uranus is a tough planet to catch, but it’s very, still quite close to its opposition so it’s still in a good position to see. Moving forward again to the night of the 31st and that extra light of the Moon in the sky makes a huge difference. This is a fantastic time to compare, those are two nights of the year where there’s a good chance you may be staying up late and there will be a very distinct contrast between those two nights because of the phases of the Moon.

Coming up to morning time, the Sun is pretty much directly in front of the core of the Milky Way. That means we’re barely going to see much of the Milky Way at all, it’s going to be quite low in the sky, and of course, the light of the Moon is also going to interfere. This brings us forward to New Year’s morning, and a lot of people take a look at the Sun rising on New Year’s morning. Mercury is certainly gone, even at 7:40. All of the Summer Triangle is back up in morning time as is Scorpius. If Scorpius is back in the morning, the core of the Milky Way must be just below the horizon. This means we’re going to start seeing more and more of the Milky Way’s core in the morning as we move through January and later into the year. We’ve also got quite a good view of Corona Borealis up above the sunrise. To make things fair, we’ll pull back into the city. I know that more people live in cities, generally speaking, so there is a better chance that you will have sunrise in a city sky than in the country sky. The extra light pollution makes Scorpius very faint, but of course, the Summer Triangle has some of the brightest stars in the sky, so they’re still very clear and visible, as is Arcturus in Boötes and most of the other famous stars like Spica and Regulus.

We can still see Jupiter in the morning, it’s still up in the morning because it’s so close to opposition, it’s almost with us from sunset until sunrise. Once we get a little bit further into January, it will be at opposition and it will be with us from sunset to sunrise, just another interesting thing that you can catch in the morning. If we come just a little bit earlier to the beginning of sunrise, when light is first starting to come through the sky, at about 7:20, Jupiter is still high enough to be reasonably easy to observe. These upcoming nights, the night of the 24th and the 25th, as well as the night of the 31st, these are often times of the year where people stay out later, especially for New Year’s Eve. Many people stay up until midnight to ring in the New Year and many people get up in the morning to greet the first sunrise of the New New Year. If you are going to be up anyway, these are fantastic opportunities to go and take a look at the sky.

We’ll come back up to midnight on New Year’s. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is lowish to the south, with Jupiter, the second brightest planet and largest in our solar system, a little bit higher. The Moon at its waxing gibbous phase is nice and big and bright next to the Pleiades. A little lower, Taurus is clear with Aldebrand and the Hyades. This is all visible at midnight, a time when, if you are ringing in the New Year at midnight, there’s a good chance you’ll be awake anyway. To the north, we’ve got a nice balance of the Plough on the northeast, pointing down to the North Star and kind of bouncing up on the other side we’ve got Cassiopeia in the northwest, both pretty much equal by the time we’re through to midnight. If we lean back a little bit, not even too much, we’ve got Capella and the pentagon of Auriga almost at the zenith, just a bit lower in the sky. This is a fantastic night to go and look at the night sky, especially if you’re going to be awake anyway.

Very quickly popping out to the countryside again, just because this is such a particularly famous night. The glow of the Milky Way is just about visible stretching behind the southern portion of the sky around midnight, but the glow of the Moon is of course, going to block out a lot of it. I’ve already mentioned in so many previous videos the interesting things that we can see when we take a closer look at Orion, but of course it’s going to be close to the Moon, and that light of the Moon is going to make things harder to see. Taking a look instead towards the tail of Leo and head of Virgo, there is a comet coming around as we come into January, comet 24P/Schaumasse. It’s barely visible as we take a look out in this direction, but it would be a bit more visible than the galaxies that lie out in this direction. There are a large number of galaxies out towards the region between Leo and Virgo, and again just up at the handle of the Plough or the Big Dipper, there are a number of them there.

Unfortunately, the light of the Moon is going to make them harder to see, but that’s something that you can take a look at instead on the night of the 24th coming into the 25th, when the night sky is going to be much more pristine. Similarly, with just looking into the glow of the Milky Way, there are a bunch of nebulae and clusters of stars in the glow of our galaxy, even though we’re looking at the outer edge of it it still provides some interesting targets. Turning back around to the eastern region of the sky with some galaxies, there’s that comet again. Its is nice to know that it’s going to be out there, even if it’s going to be difficult to see. With no Moon in the sky, it’s much easier to see some of the galaxies pretty close to the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, just the top portion. Similarly with those galaxies around the handle of the Plough or the Big Dipper, with the Moon out of the sky, they are that little bit easier to see. If you happen to get a gift of a telescope or a binoculars, or if a family member is getting a gift of the telescope or binoculars, then this is going to be really a great night to try it out, and the first night that you’ll get to try it out, from the 25ht into the 26th if you’re gifted it on the 25th.

These are all things that we’re going to see in the sky on these nights of the year where people are commonly up either late or early or both. I really hope that you take advantage of this very useful time of the year to take a look at these things in the sky. I hope you get the chance to use some telescopes or binoculars at this time of the year to take a look at these things in the sky. Also, I hope that you enjoyed this piece, if you did please do like it. If you enjoy this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.