Poster’s Note: The text for this month’s installment from Dee Sharples, “The Sky In December 2024,” is provided below. Those wishing to listen to the article can click on the audio link below.
December brings us the winter solstice arriving at 4:20 A.M. on Saturday, the 21st. It’s the shortest day of the year with the Sun rising in Rochester at 7:38 A.M. and setting at 4:37 P.M. We will have only 8 hours 59 minutes 10 seconds of daylight. The Earth’s North Pole will be tipped away from the Sun as it spins on its axis, which is tilted at an angle of 23.5°. Consequently, the northern latitudes of the Earth will experience less direct rays, as well as less hours of warmth from the Sun. The good news is that after the winter solstice, the days will start to lengthen, at first only by a few seconds but then more rapidly as we head toward spring.
Venus shines like a brilliant diamond at magnitude -4.2 in the southwest sky as darkness falls. A crescent Moon stands due south of Venus on December 4th.
The planet Jupiter will provide its best visual display in a decade this month. On December 1st, it rises in the east around 5:00 P.M. and will be visible in the sky all night. By midnight you can spot it very high in the south. Jupiter will be hard to miss shining at a blazing magnitude -2.8. Even though it will be in an area of the sky filled with bright winter constellations, the planet will stand out.
Mars will shine like an orangish star, rising in the east at magnitude -0.5 at 8:30 P.M. at the beginning of the month. By the end of December, it will have brightened to magnitude -1.2.
The Geminid meteor shower is active from December 4th to the 20th and reaches its peak late at night on December 13th. At 2:00 A.M. on December 14th, which normally would have been a good time to observe it, a full Moon will create a major interference. Rates for these “shooting stars” can reach a maximum of 150 meteors per hour at the peak of the Geminids, but the light from the Moon will wash out all but the brightest ones.
