Our weather for tomorrow night may or may not cooperate for the partial eclipse.  It looks like it may be partially cloudy, so we'll see when I drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night.

Our weather is definitely not cooperating. November is a huge cloud month for us, and tonight is no different. I adore clouds, but not when they totally impede the view of the glorious night sky nor an astronomical event. However, if there is, by some unexpected shift, any chance of a peek at the Moon, I plan to be out there tonight. Thanks for all the good info, stargazer! I hope you can catch a glimpse, fantasia, stargazer, and others here.

If it's not cloudy (doubtful) I have a good chance of seeing this one.  I'm not dedicated enough to drag myself out of bed, but since I'm likely to be up then (1:00 am - it is November, after all) I'll most likely take note.  If it's not cloudy...

The clouds remain thick here (November is our cloudiest month on average), with brisk north winds. But some forecasts indicate clear to partly cloudy skies overnight. We'll see...

Clear skies!

I was fortunate to see much of the eclipse the other night.  The previous few days were blustery, chilly, and cloudy, but the overcast suddenly and quickly broke around sunset. The blustery winds went down and the temperature was around 20F/-7C, so it was pleasant for Minnesota in November.

It was cool enough that we (Ryadian's father joined me at times) didn't spend the entire  time outside, but we were there for the highlights, like the beginning of the partial phase.  It was rather odd to see the darkening near the top of the Moon (as opposed to the more usual left side).  The Moon was very high (60 degrees) and I found the most convenient viewing position was sitting on a lawn chair so I could lean back.  Binoculars helped us see the nearby Pleiades.

When not outside I checked in on a live stream online.

By 0215 it was about 65% covered, with the eclipsed section now appearing orange.  The Pleiades were easy to find in binoculars, but the sky was becoming hazy.  Moon shadows were much fainter than before.

Mid-eclipse came at 0303 and was spectacular.  The sky had cleared again and the Moon looked a lot like Mars might: a dark portion on its right, becoming orange and red, with just a tiny, bright white lit part on its lower left, looking like a Martian polar cap.  The sky was much darker, even in the city, and the Pleiades were now easily visible.

By 0350 it was mostly cloudy, though I could see the Moon through a thin spot in the clouds.  It looked like a regular crescent now, about 35% lit, with the still-eclipsed part visible through the clouds.  By 0450 the sky was overcast.

Looking forward  to the next eclipse, in May 2022.

We were told about a total eclipse of the Sun over Antarctica in today's news. It was a lovely clear day/night in this Southern land of the Midnight Sun, on Saturday 4th December, 2021 and the eclipse was a beautiful revelation with a ring of fire around the Moon as its eclipse of the Sun  reached totality. Viewers included resident scientists, some travelling thrillseekers, plus a lovely chorus of thousands of penguins. 

Soon it will be the Summer Solstice here, just before Christmas. 

Astronomy Picture of the Day had an impressive picture of the December 4 total solar eclipse taken from an airplane.

Good news for those Northern Hemisphere folks who don't like the early sunsets these days: the earliest sunsets of the year are this week (varying slightly depending on your latitude), and the sun will start setting later even before the solstice.

(While the solstice is the shortest day, it doesn't have the earliest sunset or latest sunrise. It may seem counterintuitive, but the quick answer is because the earth's orbit isn't a perfect circle).

I appreciated your description of the partial lunar eclipse, @stargazer! It sounds so beautiful. 'Twas interesting to read, and I'm so glad it turned out quite clear for you.  

And, @waggawerewolf27, how wonderful you got to view that total solar eclipse a week+ ago! It must have been spectacular!  

wagga wrote:

Viewers included resident scientists, some travelling thrillseekers, plus a lovely chorus of thousands of penguins.

That's great about the penguins!

And that photo in APotD is simply , stargazer!!!

stargazer wrote:

Good news for those Northern Hemisphere folks who don't like the early sunsets these days: the earliest sunsets of the year are this week (varying slightly depending on your latitude), and the sun will start setting later even before the solstice.

(While the solstice is the shortest day, it doesn't have the earliest sunset or latest sunrise. It may seem counterintuitive, but the quick answer is because the earth's orbit isn't a perfect circle).

Very interesting, plus this makes sense too.   But I am one of those few who prefers the long nights and shorter days, so am always a little sad when this starts to switch around again (in portend of summer), although it will be quite awhile before we really notice any difference.

I am excited for the Geminids tonight. Actually, tomorrow morning for me. I will be arising even earlier than usual for my morning walk under the night sky, and, great news, the entire night is to be mostly clear, hurrah! Sky & Telescope have this article: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/precious-hours-with-the-geminids/.

Here, it really was almost a perfect night to view the Geminids. Clear, overall, not too cold (or warm!), very light breeze. I started out of the house for my walk at 5:09 a.m. (to be exact ) on my usual route, which begins westward. I did rather master the skill of walking briskly and looking up at the same time.

The Geminid constellation was beautiful toward the West. Within a minute  or two, I saw my first meteor. Within the next 90 minutes of my walk, I counted 37, including a magnificent fireball: W -> N, a bright green ball at the end that flashed as it dissipated. I later reported this on the American Meteor Society site. It was seen by a few others too: last time I looked, one person in Waterloo (less than an hour NE of us); someone else in Michigan. The fireball was #10 in my count; #22 was a long, bright meteor that had quite the residual light, which lasted for at least five seconds.

A few of the meteors were not long at all (cute little things ); a few were extra long and bright and almost 'slow'; more were medium-length, averagely bright, and quite fast. I love meteor showers! An advantage of seeing the Geminids in the dark morning was that the Moon has already set, so was not interfering with visibility.  

A great start to my Tuesday morning. Mind you, any night-sky viewing is a mighty special start (or end) to the day.  

Should Pluto be reclassified as a planet? It was considered a planet for so many years after Clyde Tombaugh discovered it that I wondered why it was changed to something else.  Dwarf planet may be confusing to the non scientist. I think the asteroids used to be called minor planets, but today the term is seldom used. Could there be too many different kinds of planets?  Maybe Mr. Tombaugh was right all along in his discovery and his classification of Pluto, which was confirmed by the scientists so many years ago.

Here is an interesting article:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pluto-should-be-reclassified-as-a-planet-scientists-argue/ar-AASgVF5

I will try and catch time to read that article later, narnian78!

We have a lot of cloud in the winter months (which also bring snow —> not at all a bad thing ), but this means that the glorious night sky can disappear for days on end, which I miss. When there is finally a cloudless night, it is such a joy to see those 'old twinkly friends' again up on high. Also, it is interesting how much their positions have changed since the last time the sky was clear. I barely caught Venus last night, as it was deep in the sunset's red glow. Venus will soon not be visible anymore in the early evening, but Mercury will be! I am hoping to spot that low-hanging planet in the SW, not too far from Saturn. Bright Jupiter, of course, was lovely, as always, to the far upper left of Saturn.

In the opposite direction last night on my crunchy-snow walk (-14C / 6.8F walk; very still, hardly a breeze), I saw mighty Orion rising in the eastern sky. I gasped aloud in its beauty and majesty.

In these mid-winter months, I am reveling in the long nights and short days, and cringe when I think of not seeing the starry sky anymore during the summer months. But Autumn and Winter will come again!  

I had clear skies the first couple days of January, so I walked to a nearby parking lot to see Venus sinking in the twilight. Now it's cloudy so I likely won't see it again in the evening (it enters the morning sky on January 8). Mercury might be a challenge given our cold weather and that it's lower in the sky from this latitude.

The Quadrantid meteor shower peaked this morning but it was cloudy here. It's a reasonably strong shower with a short maximum period. Between that and the cold weather, I've only seen two meteors over the years that I can call Quadrantids, but both were impressive.

@Narnian78, I have mixed feelings about the demotion of Pluto. Up until the discovery of other Kuiper Belt objects, everyone intuitively "knew" what a planet was. My main objection to the IAU decision was that it was rushed and didn't seriously consider other possibilities. The article is right in that if Pluto is accepted, then the other KBO's and the bigger moons must be included too. This was actually the other choice the IAU had in 2006 and I think they just opted for simplicity. I'm going to read the technical article mentioned.

I have been loosely following the progress of the James Webb Space Telescope. My husband has been obsessing over the project for YEARS, and after being put off for quite some time, now that it's finally launched it's been fun to follow its progress. Yesterday I was reading about how it has to get really, really cold on the lens side. I can't say it made a ton of sense to me, but that's okay! Here's my favorite site to watch the simple updates.

https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

On the subject of watching planets, there is an event happening this upcoming June 24th, where just before dawn, all of the visible planets (to the naked eye) will line up in a row. So Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. I really, REALLY want to get up and see that, but I don't have a good spot to go to view the horizon to the east. I've been thinking about potentially booking an AirBnB in the middle of nowhere Kansas and if I can find a good one, I'll have to bookmark it for future stargazing events as well. 😀 

That's definitely something to look forward to, @fantasia. It's unusual for all 5 naked eye planets to be visible at once, but for them to be in their correct order (outward from the sun) is even more fun. I hope to get a glimpse of it here as well, but have the same horizon problem. Mercury's only going to be about 5 degrees high at the beginning of civil twilight, so seeing it's going to be a trick.

This is a case of the farther south you live, the better (the ecliptic makes an increasingly-shallow angle to the horizon near the June solstice as you move northward). For example, in Houston Mercury is over 11 degrees high at the beginning of civil twilight.

I happened to wake up around 7:15 this morning, so I stepped outside to see the last quarter Moon shining in the south, and Venus in the southeast. The twilight was so strong (sunrise was about 25 minutes away) that I saw nothing else. The Moon was quite pretty, and this was the first time I'd spotted Venus since it passed between the earth and sun on January 8 and entered the morning sky. And even though I live in a suburban area, a neighbor has a rooster that insisted on announcing the coming day (though it seems to crow all the time).

The view was pretty but my time outside was cut short by the weather. The temperature was -11F/-24C, just a bit brisk.