See Mercury shine brightly in the sky this Christmas

[Admin]

Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, will shine brightly in the sky on Christmas Eve as it reaches its highest altitude in the evening sky.

See Mercury shine brightly in the sky this Christmas : Read more

 

[rod]

I did not view Mercury and Venus, but I did see the Christmas comet early today.

It was enjoyable view of the Christmas comet early this morning. I was out 0430-0530 EST. Able to view ZTF C/2022 E3 using my 90-mm refractor with TeleVue 32-mm plossl and TeleVue 14-mm Delos eyepieces, 31-71x views. Distinct stubby fan shape tail with coma. The star TYC2040-488-1 about 9 arcminute angular separation from the comet and 8.15 apparent magnitude. Starry Night shows the comet 8.59, Stellarium 1.1 shows 8.59 apparent magnitude. These estimates looked good for brightness of C/2022 E3 ZTF. I received a report on the comet from spaceweather.com yesterday so I tracked it down in Corona Borealis using a Telrad (very easy to locate). A Christmas comet Temperature -14C, winds 270/7 knots, clear skies. The wood burning stove is running and felt great when I came back inside. Fired up last night. Weather like this is for running with Big Foot and the wolf pack.