Holiday celestial lights
There’s magic in the air this holiday season, and there’s also magic in the December Butler night skies. These long nights are blessed with some of the brightest constellations of the year. Bundle up, get out that comfy reclining lawn chair, brush away the snow if you have to and enjoy the cold clear night delights. You can get an early start with the early sunsets of the year. There’s even a celestial Christmas tree available that I’ll tell you about later!
Two comets made a show over the last couple of months, Comet C/2025 R2 SWAN and especially Comet C/2025 A6 LEMMON, also known by its nickname, Comet Lemmon. Lemmon barely made naked eye visibility, but it was spectacular through telescopes and amateur smart digital photographic scopes like ZWO SeeStar, and Dwarf. By the way these scopes are fantastic and relatively low cost. Unfortunately, both comets have really dimmed as they travel farther away from Earth.
The big comet story this month and this year, for that matter, is Comet 3I/ATLAS, a rare interstellar comet traveling through our solar system. On Dec. 19, it’ll make its closest approach to Earth, about 170 million miles away. Obviously, it poses no threat to Earth. In this media-crazed era though, there’s much misinformation about it. No, it’s not an alien spaceship from another star system. What is true is that you can actually see it with a telescope, especially with larger scopes. You have to make an early wake-up call to see it. The best time to look for 3I/Atlas will be in the hours before morning twilight as it passes from the constellation Virgo to Leo through the course of December. I took a celestial photo of it last week. Apps like Sky Guide can help you pinpoint it.
The night sky is really getting lit up the first week in December, but not in a good way if you’re a hardcore stargazer! We have a full moon on Dec. 4, popularly known as the Cold Moon by many folks. It’s also a brighter-than-normal, closer-than-normal “supermoon.” The high-riding winter moon is such a joy, especially if it reflects off a fresh snow cover. However, it really does a number on the heavens with its white-washing light, pretty much obliterating all but brighter stars. The good news is that moonlight will be greatly reduced just in time for the annual Geminid meteor shower, peaking the night of Dec. 13, one of the best and most reliable of the year. I’ll have more on the Geminids next weekend in Skywatch.
The great horse Pegasus is riding high in the south-southwestern sky with Cassiopeia the Queen, the one that looks like a bright “W” in the high northern sky. The Big Dipper is still very low in the early evening northern sky at the beginning of the month. As December progresses, you’ll notice that from night to night, it will gradually get higher, standing diagonally on its handle. The Little Dipper is hanging by its handle above the Big Dipper, with Polaris, the North Star, at the end of its handle. Because Polaris is shining directly above Earth’s North Pole, it appears that all of the stars in the sky revolve around Polaris once every 24 hours, including our sun.
If you can stay up late, you’ll see the best part of December skies rising in the east. By 8 to 9 p.m., you’ll easily see Orion the Hunter, that wonderful winter constellation rising in the east. Its calling card are the three bright stars in a row that make up Orion’s belt. Preceding Orion is the constellation Taurus the Bull, with the wonderful Pleiades star cluster. There’s also Auriga, a constellation that looks like a lopsided pentagon with the bright star Capella at one of the corners of the pentagon. Auriga’s supposed to be a retired chariot driver who turned goat farmer. Just to the north of Orion is the constellation Gemini the Twins, with the bright stars Castor and Pollux that mark the heads of the twins Castor and Pollux. I call this part of the sky “Orion and his gang.”
The absolute brightest “star’ in the night this month is the planet Jupiter. It’s nearing its closest approach to Earth next month, but it’s plenty close right now. By mid-month, it’ll be just over 400 million miles away. You can’t miss it as it climbs out of the low eastern sky. With even a small telescope, you can see up to four of its larger moons and at least some of its cloud bands. It’s best to wait as long as you can before observing the giant planet with a telescope so it can rise higher and get above the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere.
Saturn’s also available in the evening sky this month. Even if it’s not nearly as bright as Jupiter, it’s easy to find. After evening twilight look for the brightest star you can see above the southern horizon. That’s Saturn. It’s also great observing with even a small telescope with its ring system, even though right now, its rings appear nearly on edge from our Earthly view. Also, check out Saturn’s many moons that resemble tiny little stars.
The elusive planet Mercury puts on a nice show in the early morning sky this month, mainly during the first three weeks of December. Since Mercury has such a tight orbit around the sun, it never gets very far from the sun in our skies. Honestly though, you can’t see all that much detail on its surface, even with a large, powerful telescope. On Dec. 17, a very thin waning crescent moon will be parked to the far right of Mercury.
Dec. 21 marks the winter solstice, with the sun shining directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. It’s the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere and the shortest night in the southern hemisphere. From now until late next June, the sun’s path among the backdrop of stars will slowly migrate northward, and the sun will appear higher and higher in the sky in the northern hemisphere.
Enjoy all the Christmas lights all around and above us!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
