Tomorrow night the Moon will be below Venus and Thursday night it will be just above Venus giving two more excellent opportunities to see this nice pairing in the night sky.

But that’s not all. Venus is nice and far away from the Sun right now which and the Moon provides a useful guide to help see Venus during the day.  I recommend using a program like Stellarium to help you out. Set it up for your location and time of observation. Be sure the Moon and Venus are up in the sky during the day. Note the position of Venus relative to the Moon. Now you are ready to track down Venus in broad daylight.

Find the Moon and slowly scan away from the Moon toward where Venus should be located according to Stellarium. You really have to look directly at Venus to see it during the day.  That is, the image of Venus must land on the fovea of your eye. The fovea is the small spot in the center of your retina where the cones are most closely spaced and your vision is most acute. Once you hit that spot, Venus will pop into view so prominently you will wonder how you missed it before.

It takes some practice.  Be sure your eyes are focused at infinity (focus on the Moon before you scan will do the trick). It also helps if you stand so the Sun is hidden Sun behind a tree or building to cut down on glare.

Many people wait until close to sunset to try this, but I have seen Venus practically any time it is up, even in the middle of the day. A good strategy might be to try it near sunset on Wednesday night and if you are successful, try it during the day on Thursday.

Happy observing!

Next a green flash from the setting Sun with the telescopes of Kitt Peak visible on the mountain just to the left.

A post Sunset shot of Kitt Peak.

Finally, Venus setting over saguaros near the bottom of the Catalina Highway.

Here’s to a great 2012!

Fortunately, the Moon makes a close pass near Jupiter on January 2nd giving you a bit of help in this challenging observation. I recommend using a program such as Stellarium to make a finder chart for your particular location and time. Your best bet is late afternoon when the Moon and Jupiter have risen high enough in the east to make them easier to see. Here is a chart for Tucson at about 4pm tomorrow (the Moon moves about one Moon diameter per hour, so if you are observing several hours earlier or later, you might want to make a chart for yourself!)

Start by finding the Moon. You need to focus your eyes at infinity to have any chance of seeing Jupiter and the Moon is close enough to infinity that you can use it. Slowly scan toward the Jupiter. You have to look DIRECTLY at Jupiter to see it (that is Jupiter must be focused on the fovea, the center of your retina where you have the most sensitive vision) and it will pop into view. If you are off just a little bit, you won’t see it so this observation takes some patience! Some people find it is easier to wait until the Sun is almost going down, but I like the challenge of the fully illuminated sky!

It is much easier to take a pic of Jupiter during the day. Zoom in on the Moon (but not too far) and take a short exposure. Examine it closely on your computer screen to find Jupiter.

I have seen Jupiter during the day several times. It takes practice but is possible. If you are successful, you will join a fairly small and select group who have achieved this challenging observation.

It was a nice sunset with multiple green flashes as different parts of the Sun disappear behind the jagged mountain.  Look closely and you can even see some rare blue flashes and at least once I see some even more rare purple. The blue and purple get scattered more by Earth’s atmosphere than green light so it is harder to catch them. Of course we get some great conditions with low humidity and pollution here so you can occasionally catch them. I have never seen them naked eye, only in my pics.

If the weather holds tomorrow night, I am planning on trying to get pics from Windy Point up on the Catalina Highway. I need to get up there more often since the extra elevation can give some interesting effects…stay tuned!

And for astronauts on the ISS who captured this amazing video!

Watch all the lightning as before the comet rises over the horizon followed by the blinding dawn. It is much easier to get this from space when you don’t have the brightening twilight you get on Earth. You can even see the layers of Earth’s atmosphere…stunning!

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you the Muppets get the gang back together again in the movie. They decide to round up the gang via montage. Look where they find Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker.

Yep, that’s the ATLAS detector at CERN. Turns out Honeydew and Beaker spent their down time looking for the Higgs Boson. Yeah, I let out a little “squee” when I saw this.

Simply go out, lay down and look up.  Scan the sky, no telescope or binoculars required. There will be a pretty bright Moon out tonight which makes meteors more difficult to see.

One nice thing about the Perseids is that they action picks up a little earlier in the night than for the Perseids (although it is better to watch later if you can). Since Earth is tilted away from the Sun in the winter, we turn into the meteor stream a bit earlier. Gemini, the radian of the meteor shower, clears the horizon by 8pm local time here in Tucson.

Looks like it will be raining here in Tucson tonight. Fortunately, the Geminids are a fairly wide debris stream, so it might still be worth checking out the next night. Bundle up everyone!

Now a zoomed in view.

Wide view with the deep blue of early twilight.

Back to close up.

And finally, one of the last pics I got before the Moon faded from site due to the brightening sky and the increasingly eclipsed Moon.

Obviously, I didn’t see the senelion here. The Moon vanished before sunrise. I don’t see how you can see this with a totally eclipsed Moon. Maybe with a partially eclipsed Moon.  Look forward to seeing if anyone got pics of that using a fisheye lens or something similar.