The Night Sky

The night sky is worth a look this December. In the early morning - this was taken at 7.45am yesterday - the bright 'star' sitting above the sunrise is Venus. The two bright 'stars' in the evening sky in the west are Jupiter and Saturn which will, on 21st December, the day of the winter solstice, be at their closest since 1623. The fancy word for this is a 'conjunction' and there's a diagram to help find them on the NASA website here.

Unless it's totally overcast and raining, I always step outside last thing at night, something which was worth doing on Thursday night as I saw three shooting stars in the ten minutes before I was driven back inside by the cold. The Geminids are past their maximum, which was on the night of 13th/14th. There's a photo of the Geminids over China on the NASA site here.

The lunar month started badly for me yesterday evening when, in the twilight, I saw the fine crescent of the new moon. My mother told me always to nod seven times to the moon on the first sighting to earn a month's good luck, something which, according to her, was negated if one saw it through glass - which is what I did.