Sky Guide December 2023

On 25 December, as the sky darkens after sunset, look due West to see a very bright Venus, with Saturn above and to the right. In the north-east is a bright Jupiter in the horns of Taurus, the bull. Neptune, not far from Saturn and Uranus (near Jupiter) are also up that evening. Mars joins the party when it rises later in the north-eastern sky.

The Geminids meteor shower is one of the best showers of the year. Its meteors fly across the sky, sometimes colourful, sometimes bursting into fragments like a sparkler. The Moon is down during this time so the sky will be dark and the show will be better. Find a dark location, in a large park or away from city lights, and look towards the north-eastern sky after midnight. Regular meteors should radiate from near the constellation Gemini. They are active from 4–17 December and the best time this year will be the early morning of 15 December, but try also on the early mornings of 16 and 17 December.

Constellations represent groups of stars that have been given a name and more recently a border. For millennia they have been used as tools to share significant cultural stories. Today, the 88 constellations used by Western astronomers help them map the sky and search for astronomical objects. This December the following constellations dominate the summer sky.

Orion the hunter dominates the December north-eastern sky. One of the most well-known non-zodiac constellations, its famous three-star belt lies very close to the celestial Equator. These stars also make the base of what many Australians refer to as the base of the saucepan. Within the handle of the saucepan, a nebula around 1350 light years away is one of the first things to look at through a telescope. Known as M42 or the Orion Nebula, it contains enough gas and dust to make as many as 2000 stars like the Sun.