It was hard to pick one single topic this week for Starwatch so consider this an astronomical holiday season potpourri.

Annihilated comet

OK, as I told you in my column last month, beware of Comet ISON hype!

In my opinion, between a handful of irresponsible astronomers and a hype hungry media that touted ISON as the “comet of the century” a true disservice was served upon the science of astronomy.

In fact, even one of the more popular astronomical magazines was blatant in grossly overselling ISON. Could it be to boost circulation?

The truth is the majority of astronomers believed ISON would be vaporized when it reached its closest approach to the sun Nov. 28, which is what happened.

Even deep freeze comets from the outer reaches of the solar system don’t deal all that well when they pass within a million miles of the sun as ISON did. Five thousand plus degrees tend to bring on their ruin!

Even if Comet ISON survived that, there was very little chance it could be seen with the naked eye.

I have to admit that as ISON got sucked in closer and closer to the sun I got a little sucked in by the hype. I do regret that. There, I got that off to my astronomical chest!

Crescent Venus

Over and over lately I’ve been getting phone calls and e-mails about the super bright star in the low southwestern sky in the evening twilight. That’s no star but our solar system neighbor, the planet Venus.

The planet named after the Roman goddess of love is just about as bright as it ever gets in our sky.

That bright beacon of a planet that sets at the end of evening twilight is only about 32 million miles from Earth right now.

Actually, to be more accurate, I should say that Venus and Earth are about as close as they get to each other as they both travel in their respective orbits around the sun.

Venus is very close to the sun now and will cross almost directly in front of the sun next month, something astronomers call inferior conjunction.

Despite how bright Venus is in the sky it’s normally not much of a telescope target because it has a very opaque cloud cover.

It’s still cloud cover, but if you check it out in a small telescope or even an average pair of binoculars, Venus will look like a thin crescent moon. I guarantee you’ll love it!

Because Venus orbits the sun inside the Earth’s orbit around our home star, it goes through phase shape changes just like our moon.

Like our moon, the only light we see from Venus is reflected sunlight, and right now, except for a little sliver, the sunlit side of Venus is turned away from us.

Brilliant Jupiter

At the other end of the early evening sky another bright beacon is beckoning us.

Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, is rising in the northeast sky, easily seen at 8 p.m., if not sooner. As December continues it starts out the evening higher and higher in the sky. You can’t miss it as it shines a little to the left of the majestic constellation Orion the Hunter.

Right now, Jupiter is just less than 400 million miles from Earth, a lot farther away than Venus, but because it has more than 10 times the diameter of Venus, Jupiter’s darn near as bright as our Venusian neighbor!

Jupiter is a great target for even small telescopes. Maybe there’s a telescope on your Christmas list?

You can see up to four of its brighter moons that resemble tiny little stars depending on where they are in their 2- to 17-day orbits around the biggest planet in the solar system.

You can also see some of Jupiter’s brighter cloud bands made of ammonia, methane and other gases. I’ll have more on Jupiter next month in Starwatch.

Highest full moon of the year

Officially, the full moon this month is Tuesday, but for all practical purposes it’s near full tonight.

You can’t help but notice the moon this coming week takes a very high arc across the sky.

In fact, around midnight Tuesday and Wednesday the full moon will be about as high as it gets in our Butler sky.

When you have a full moon in mid to late December like we have this month, the moon takes the same high arc across the sky as the sun does on first day of summer.

Enjoy your moon bath this week!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications available at bookstores and at www.adventurepublications.net.