Without a doubt, the brightest star over Butler this week of Christmas is not actually a star but the brilliant planet Jupiter that’s jumped into our eastern evening sky. There’s no way you can miss it, even in the worst light pollution.

There are so many theories as to what the original star of Bethlehem was at the time of the birth of Christ. As far as I’m concerned, I believe that it certainly could have been a supernatural event.

Some theories have it as conjunction of planets. There is a theory out there that says maybe Jupiter was the actual Christmas star that was stationary in the constellation Aries the Ram, but that’s a story for another day.

Speaking of conjunctions, Jupiter and the near full moon will have a celestial hugging to celebrate Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, Jupiter will be a little to the lower left of the moon, and just to the upper left of the moon will be the bright Pleiades star cluster, although it’ll be a little washed out because of all the moonlight.

On Christmas night, the moon and Jupiter will be in a really tight embrace, with Jupiter just to the upper left of the moon. What a nice celestial Christmas present!

Jupiter joins a host of many other bright stars at the leading edge of the wonderful winter constellations like Auriga, Taurus, Orion, Gemini and others. They perennially show up this time every year as the evening view from Earth turns toward that direction of space as our world orbits the sun.

Jupiter is a welcome visitor to my favorite set of constellations and it’s so much fun to look at, even in the smallest of telescopes!

Jupiter’s so bright right now for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s by far the largest planet in our solar system at 88,000 miles in diameter compared with Earth’s 8,000 mile girth. In fact, it’s so big that if it were hollow you could easily fill it with more than a thousand Earth’s!

Jupiter’s brilliance is also due to the fact it’s making its closest approach to Earth for 2012. Last June, it was nearly 600 million miles distant, but now the gap between Jupiter and the Earth has been reduced considerably.

This phenomenon is called opposition, which actually took place a few weeks ago on Dec. 3. In the case of Jupiter and the Earth, opposition occurs every 398 days or about every 11 months.

On the exact day of opposition, the Earth finds itself caught in an imaginary line between Jupiter and the sun. Because of this orbital geometry, Jupiter and the Earth are not only at their minimum distance from each other, but they’re also at opposite ends of our sky.

Just like the full moon, Jupiter rises at sunset in the east and sets at sunrise in the west. As an added bonus because of the slight lopsidedness of Earth’s and Jupiter’s orbits, this will be the closest Jupiter is to our backyards until 2021.

But that’s not as they say on late night infomercials. All this winter Jupiter will be the farthest north it can be in its 12 year journey among the constellations. That’s great news for us in northern latitudes because that’ll allow Jupiter to make a very high and long arc across the celestial dome.

It’s tempting to take your telescopes or binoculars and start looking at Jupiter right away as soon as dark falls. Don’t do it because I guarantee Jupiter will be what I call “fuzzy wuzzy.”

That’s because at lower altitudes in the sky you have to look at a larger cross section of the shell of air that makes up Earth’s atmosphere. That really tends to “muddy up” the view of whatever you’re trying to observe. Your best bet is to wait until 8 or 9 p.m. By then, the king of the planets will be high enough in the sky to avoid the blurring haze of our atmosphere.

Also, make sure you put your telescope out along with all the eyepieces for at least a half-hour before you start viewing so the optics can adapt to outside temperatures.

One more thing. When you view Jupiter or any other celestial object, try to look continually through the eyepiece for 10 to 15 minutes. The longer you look, the more detail you’ll see.

With a clear enough view you should be able to see at least some of Jupiter’s higher cloud bands of methane, ammonia, sulfur and other gases. They’ll be orientated diagonally across the disk of the planet with two distinctly darker bands either side of Jupiter’s equator.

You may even catch a glimpse of the “Great Red Spot,” a giant swirling storm about three times the diameter of Earth. It’s actually pretty hard to spot because it’s not all that red but more like a pale pink that can really blend in with the rest of the clouds.

It’s also difficult to see the Great Red Spot because Jupiter rotates on its axis very rapidly every ten hours, and at the time you’re observing the planet, the spot may be turned away from you.

By the way, wind speeds along those cloud bands can easily exceed 150 to 200 mph, and around the red spot they can top 400 mph. The winds are so fast because of infrared heat oozing from Jupiter’s interior and its rapid rotation.

Along with the grandeur of Jupiter you can also see up to four of Jupiter’s brighter moons, known as the Galilean moons, with even the smallest of telescopes.

They’re named in honor of Galileo because in the year 1610 he’s the first person, at least that we know of, that took the recently invented telescope and studied the night to night changing positions of little “stars” either side of Jupiter.

They dance around Jupiter in periods of two to 17 days and each one is very unique and fascinating. I’ll have more on Jupiter’s moons next month in Starwatch.

By the way, there’s a great website that can help you keep up with Jupiter’s rotation through Sky and Telescope magazine. The Web address is www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/planets/3307071.htm.