Did anyone have a chance to view the extremely close pairing of Venus and the crescent Moon yesterday (Thursday) morning? It was quite spectacular, especially with the earthshine lighting up the dark side of the Moon.

It also gave me an opportunity to "cheat" and use the nearby Moon to find Venus in broad daylight (when well-placed like it is right now, the planet is visible during the day, but can be hard to find in the bright blue sky without some kind of landmark pointing the way to it).

I went out about 10 minutes before sunrise (which is at 7:03 local time here now) and easily spotted the Moon near Venus. The Belt of Venus (that pinkish band near the horizon opposite the sunrise point) was prominently visible in the west (night owl that I am, I'm far more likely to see the evening version than this morning one). Before long the rising sun lit the highest branches of nearby trees, making the few remaining leaves shine golden. This was also quite pretty. Venus remained easily visible to the unaided eye.

I also went out a couple hours later and found the Moon quite easily, but needed binoculars to see Venus.

Ryadian's father also joined me for both of these daylight Venus observations.

Posted by: @stargazer

Did anyone have a chance to view the extremely close pairing of Venus and the crescent Moon yesterday (Thursday) morning? It was quite spectacular, especially with the earthshine lighting up the dark side of the Moon.

I did see that very early in the morning, including the earthshine! It's a rare treat for me to see anything spectacular in the night sky... too much light pollution where I live, plus it's so often cloudy. 12 years in the northern hemisphere and I still can't recognise any northern constellations on sight except Orion — and only because I already know him from the southern hemisphere, as he's visible from Australia for part of the year. (And all right, the only other constellation I can recognise at all is the Southern Cross, but never mind. )

Edited to add: Very similar effect this morning (Saturday), except Venus is further away and the Moon is an even thinner waning crescent, what I call a fingernail Moon. Still seems a bit odd to have it waxing and waning from right to left, instead of from left to right like it does where I grew up... 

Posted by: @stargazer

I had the pleasure of stepping outside yesterday morning shortly after 7 am to see Arcturus for the first time in this apparition. I always enjoy spotting a familiar favorite for the first time each season.

...

Did anyone have a chance to view the extremely close pairing of Venus and the crescent Moon yesterday (Thursday) morning? It was quite spectacular, especially with the earthshine lighting up the dark side of the Moon.

Wonderful! I agree that spotting an 'old friend' of the night sky for the first time each season is always such a treat.

Each morning I am keeping an eye on Arcturus, as it rises higher, and yesterday morning saw a star I had been on the lookout for ... Spica! (From the Big Dipper, arc to Arcturus; speed on to Spica, as the saying goes.)

I loved reading about your finding Venus at the sun rose, and after! I have fun on my a.m. walks spotting Venus for as long as I can. This morning, a half hour before sunrise, the night sky objects that were still viewable were: Arcturus (albeit dim), Venus, Sirius, Procyon, the two top stars of Gemini, Betelgeuse and Rigel (top left, bottom right) in Orion, and, very, very faintly, Orion's belt, and Capella (high in the west).

As you and @Courtenay have mentioned, earthshine has been spectacular lately, as the thinner and thinner Moon rises later in the morning. We have called that type of Moon a 'fingernail Moon' too, Courtenay. Or a sliver. Or a paring. So beautiful!

When I walk (usually from 5:45 - 6:45 am), it has been between 0 and -5C, so, for me, the perfect temperature for brisk-walking for an hour+ ... except when I stop to take in that wonderful night sky.  

EDIT: I meant to mention that when Venus and the crescent, then slivered Moon drew further apart, the image that came to my mind was of a giant pendulum in the sky with Venus being the pivot point above, the Moon (along with its earthshine) being the huge pendulum, as it swung to the left. Such a magnificent sight!

Posted by: @courtenay

Still seems a bit odd to have [the Moon] waxing and waning from right to left, instead of from left to right like it does where I grew up... 

That's another sight I'd like to see should I get a chance to travel Down Under. I've only seen it wax and wane right to left. 😉

Remember the movie Babe?  (Baa ram ewe...).  There is a scene-setting shot showing the house with twilight and a half-moon above (it's a very pretty shot), then it cuts to an internal shot of the evening meal. My first reaction was, "How can it be evening? The Moon clearly shows it's very early morning.  Oh, that's right, it's set Down Under.")

The weather here of late has been incredibly warm. Sunday night, it was still 54F/12C 90 minutes after sunset (for reference, the average high during the day right now is 43F/6C). So I pulled up a chair and enjoyed some time under the stars. 

Sometimes I'll call friends while doing this, just to catch up.  That night, I called my brother in Seattle (conveniently 2 hours behind me).  Just as he answered, I saw a Starlink satellite parade rise up from the west, so he was treated to me going "Ooh, ahh," a few times, as it was totally unexpected.

The satellites were about magnitude 2 (still easily visible in city lights), spaced about 4 degrees apart, and rising to the southeast, fading out before they reached Altair, then about 45 degrees high in the southwest.  The spacing decreased to about 2 degrees apart before the show ended. I estimate there were about 35 satellites seen.

Posted by: @stargazer

Remember the movie Babe?  (Baa ram ewe...).  There is a scene-setting shot showing the house with twilight and a half-moon above (it's a very pretty shot), then it cuts to an internal shot of the evening meal. My first reaction was, "How can it be evening? The Moon clearly shows it's very early morning.  Oh, that's right, it's set Down Under.")

Remember it?? We Aussies were just about delirious with excitement that this fantastic film that became a worldwide hit, with the then extremely innovative use of CGI to make the animals' mouths look like they were REALLY talking, was OUR country's own production!!! I was in my first year of high school when it came out and I was delighted to find that the film was worth the hype. Mind you, although it was filmed in New South Wales, I've always felt it looks and sounds like it's meant to be set in England, probably because the original book (by Dick King-Smith) is. In any case, I would never have noticed anything unusual about that night sky, having never been north of the equator back then!

I honestly reckon the Moon looks much better the right — er, the southern — way up. Seriously, from Australia's side of this planet, the Moon really does look almost like it has a face on it, with only a little imagination. I could easily see that as a child, and always assumed that's how stories of the Man in the Moon came about. In fact, I had an extensive correspondence with the Man in the Moon (known as "Moony" for short) when I was really little; my letters left out for him on the window sill would disappear overnight and be replaced with responses from him, much to my excitement. Of course I twigged somewhere along the line that it was my dad and/or my older sister doing the actual writing of these, but I didn't mind!  

Here, for those who haven't seen this for themselves, are side-by-side photos of the Moon as seen from each hemisphere. And if you can't already see what I instinctively can in the second photo, here's a blog by a fellow Aussie who does.  

(And another interpretation of it by yet another Aussie. My own perception of "the face" is sort of somewhere between these two!)

So this raises a big question. Since the Man in the Moon can easily be seen by us southerners, but is not at all apparent when viewed from the northern half of this planet (to my crashing disappointment when I first looked at the night sky after moving to England)... how did all the legends of the said Man come about? I'm now looking at Wikipedia's page on the subject, but still cannot see anything remotely resembling either a face or a human figure in the northern view of the moon, and yet virtually all the legends cited seem to come from the northern hemisphere. I'm baffled as to how you guys ever managed to notice him when he's the wrong way up over here!!

(And to compound the oddness, that iconic shot from the pioneering 1902 sci-fi film La Voyage dans la Lune (included on the Wikipedia page), with the spacecraft hitting the Man in the eye, has him looking quite recognisably like he does from the southern hemisphere, and yet it is of course a French film. But it merely adds to my conviction of what the "right way up" for our natural satellite is. )

Posted by: @stargazer

Just as he answered, I saw a Starlink satellite parade rise up from the west, so he was treated to me going "Ooh, ahh," a few times, as it was totally unexpected.

Haha, that is cool timing!  

Posted by: @courtenay

In fact, I had an extensive correspondence with the Man in the Moon (known as "Moony" for short) when I was really little; my letters left out for him on the window sill would disappear overnight and be replaced with responses from him, much to my excitement. Of course I twigged somewhere along the line that it was my dad and/or my older sister doing the actual writing of these, but I didn't mind!

What fun!  

I saw a strange sight on my walk this morning. 'Twas a perfectly clear night sky; everything was where it should be   but as I was walking east, a bright light high in the sky caught my eye. It was headed east at quite a speed, but even as I looked, it seemed to split into two, with the front stronger light moving a bit ahead of the second dimmer light, after which they disappeared into the east. The whole thing took only two or three seconds. I only wish I had been walking west or north, so could possibly have seen more.

I did spot two Leonid meteors yesterday morning (one longer and dimmer; the other shorter and very bright), so I am wondering if this morning's unexpected viewing was a meteor. But were there two side by side, then, one being slower, they separated, or was it one meteor, splitting in two? I have never seen anything like it before. It did not emanate from Leo (very high in the south sky at 6:15 am), but appeared to have come from the western sky.

Whatever it was, it was verrrry cool to see!

Fun stuff, @Courtenay, and great questions regarding the man in the Moon.  I admit I am at something of a loss to explain its Northern Hemisphere origins if it looks much more like a man in the Southern. I've been more likely to see the rabbit in the Moon (also depicted on that wiki page) than a man.

That is an amazing sight, @Jo, and I wonder what it was. A meteor might be the best guess, and maybe we can keep an eye on the AMS meteor reports to see if it shows up (it is not on there at this time).

I have not posted here in the past few weeks, because we have had an abundance of cloud cover. Only the other morning were there honeycomb-type clouds (Lacunosus) in the sky that were racing across, in between which I could briefly glimpse various stars. This looked so very cool! But in the SE, Venus and the crescent Moon really stood out, and to the upper right of the Moon was Spica: these three formed a striking isosceles triangle.

I know when we finally have a clear night sky, everything will have shifted quite a bit from when I saw the full heavenlies back around mid-November, which always throws me for awhile.  

While I would much rather have clouds (than sun) during the day, I would prefer to enjoy clear, or mostly clear, skies at night for viewing the beauties of creation on high. But November is a cloudy month for us, as has been December this year. And the Geminids are coming this week ( https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/get-ready-to-greet-the-geminids/ ), so I am hoping for at least a glimpse—and hopefully more!—of this prolific meteor shower.  

Were you able to spot any Geminids, @jo?

Conditions here were pretty favorable, with a clear sky and unseasonably warm temperatures (it was still -2C during my main observing session around 1.45am Thursday morning). I saw a handful of Geminids, which isn't bad given how brightly lit my suburban skies are. A highlight was a magnitude -1.0 meteor that flashed through Leo, visible for about 20 degrees, followed by another in a parallel path below it, just below Regulus, but that one was fainter and shorter.

I also went out to look at Venus around 5.30am. It's still very bright but has become noticeably lower in the last couple months, both because it is getting closer to the sun (from our perspective) and moving south along the ecliptic, making it lower in northern skies (but higher as viewed from the Southern Hemisphere).

I am very late in responding, yet there is no doubt I would have made a point of posting earlier if I had seen any Geminids. But alas, this was one of the few years when I did not spot a one. I'm glad you saw some, @stargazer! And those two that passed by Leo one after the other must have been cool.

I have not seen Venus, or any of the night sky, for that matter, in a couple of weeks, as clouds have dominated here. On a walk I may catch a glimpse of a star so very briefly if there is the slightest parting of the overcast sky. However, tomorrow night looks to be clear, and cold, but the low temp should not stop me from getting out to view.  

EDIT on Thursday: ^ scratch that. More clouds have moved in and are here to stay for awhile. Night sky viewing will have to wait. (Given that January is one of our cloudiest month, I'm not surprised. )

So many clouds here too, Jo. We’ve had very little clear sky since those Geminid observations almost a month ago.  The sky shift when it finally does clear will be pretty dramatic.

The year’s most anticipated astronomical event, the total solar eclipse of April 8, is now 3 months out. But the latest issue of Sky and Telescope has an article about another, once-in-a-lifetime event that may occur this year; an outburst of a recurring nova. These are stars that flare up brightly, usually at fairly regular intervals – in this case, about 80 years – and then fade away again. There are signs an outburst is imminent, but predictions are still uncertain.

The candidate is T Coronae Borealis (T CrB), a normally-faint variable star in the Northern Crown, a small constellation north of the bright star Arcturus.  The article describes some of its previous outbursts, including the last one in 1946.  Legendary variable star observer Leslie Peltier describes his experiences with this star in his book Starlight Nights (which has been referred to in this thread several times), and S&T quotes him at length:

He started monitoring T CrB…in 1920, convinced the star would erupt again. This was insightful, as the concept of a recurring nova was unknown at the time.

“For more than twenty-five years I looked in on it from night to night as it tossed and turned in fitful slumber.  Then, one night in February 1946 it stirred, slowly opened its eyes, then quickly threw aside the draperies of its couch and rose!  And where was I, its self-appointed guardian on that once-in-a-lifetime night when it awoke? I was asleep! Self-pity comes easy at 2:30 on a cold February morning so I went back to my warm bed with the comforting thought that I owed it to my family, at least, to take care of my health.

“I still have the feeling that T could have shown me more consideration. We had been friends for many years; on thousands of nights I had watched over it as it slept, and then, it arose in my hour of weakness as I nodded at my post. I am still watching it [up to 1973] but now it is with a wary eye. There is no warmth between us anymore.”

Perhaps we will have the chance to see this star flare up once more this year!

Thanks for the info on the recurring nova, @stargazer. I well recall that passage in Starlight Nights, and quite felt for Peltier as he dozed while the star was 'active'. What a disappointment! 

This morning on my walk, to my surprise, 'though there seemed to be thick cloud cover (in anticipation of our winter storm arriving later today), there were enough brief breaks for me to spot a fairly bright star high in the south, then a dimmer one off to the right. According to when I last viewed the 6 a.m. night sky, I surmised the brighter one was Arcturus, and confirmed this when I caught a glimpse of the Big Dipper's handles, pointing straight to the star. Spica, of course, was the dimmer light.

I was wondering where Venus was, when, after a half hour into my walk, I did spy a brighter object through the clouds in the SE. That must be Venus. It is lower than it was a few weeks ago, that's for sure.

One more orb I saw in the ENE ... I could not figure out what it was, having not seen the night sky for a few weeks now. I checked our Planisphere  when I got home and discovered it was probably Vega. 

There may be a mix of sun and cloud next week at times, with very cold temps, so I am hoping to see more of the night sky then. But knowing January here in Ontario, that could all change.  

It was far too cold and snow-slippery to walk last night, but I poked my head out the back door mid-evening, and, for the first time in weeks, saw the stunning sight of Orion and Sirius shining way up on high. Such a treat to see them again. Then, this morning, on the way to the pool (6:45 am), there was a clear patch where Venus shone out like a burning eye in the heavens. Really beautiful! 

But on my way home from the pool (8:45 am), it was another treat to see that, a bit less than an hour after the sun rose, there were two huge sundogs - as usual, one on either side of the sun. The colours were very distinct; they were vertical rainbows! And very long. I don't think I have seen such lengthy sundogs before. Which made me wonder if they are longer when the sun is lower in the sky. Whenever I have seen them midday, they are rather cute and short.  

I must pop on to say that this morning was my best winter's walk so far. Each one is beautiful in its own way, but this one had a bonus of seeing the clear night sky for the first time in weeks! Before the huge cloud mass moved in toward the end of my walk, that is. And that was quite cool-looking too!

I had to re-orient myself as to the position of the constellations, stars ... and one planet—Venus, which is low in the SE now, and very bright. What a sight. I found out when I arrived home, after checking on Sky & Telescope, that if I had stayed out a half hour longer (a half hour before sunrise), I would have been (hopefully) able to spot both Mercury and Mars below Venus in the SE. What a sight that would have been!

As I walked out of the house, I saw a brighter star in the East, and wondered what it was, until my eyes adjusted to the darkened sky, and I spotted Cygnus the Swan, which meant that the bright star was Vega. I soon saw the entire constellation, along with the Summer Triangle rising in the eastern sky. At that point, Altair was quite near the horizon, but there it all was ... beautiful!

Cassiopeia was in the north; Capella in the NW; the top of Gemini in the WNW; the Big Dipper at the zenith of the sky, which led me to Arcturus, then to Spica. I did see star that stood out in the South, to the slight upper right of Venus, so looked it up when got home ... Antares, it was! Leo was higher in the West.

I did spot a large cloud mass moving in from the West, and by the time I arrived home (just over an hour after I began at 6:10 am), the outliers of the clouds were overhead, with a thicker cover coming in quickly. My walk was well-timed!

Most of this coming week will be cloudy, with some snow, then rain or wet snow, so I'm sure glad I had the view I did this morning ... fairly rare in the overcast winter months.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention. As I was about 15 minutes into my walk, so had turned back east from my westward route, I was looking at Cygnus, and a meteor suddenly shot through it. Very cool, indeed!

I had a fun thing happen a couple weeks ago.  I was driving to work at about 6:00 AM and I saw two separate shooting stars at different points on the drive (it was also very clear and starry).  Very interesting experience that was.