December 2022

Welcome to Hank’s December 2022 astronomy photos! December was a month of weather and traveling, both of which got between me and my telescope, but I have a few images to share. I also wanted to point out that several planets are in the early evening skies now, and so get out your smart phone, load up an Astronomy app that shows the night sky and get a look at Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. With a telescope you can also add Uranus and Neptune to your list. I have four-night sky apps that I use. Stellarium, Sky Safari Pro, Star Walk, and Sky Portal. They all do things a little differently, but for all of them, you just point your phone up to a section of the sky and the phone screen shows you a map of where you are looking and tells you the names of the objects. It takes a little practice to hold your phone “just right” to line things up, but it’s easily mastered. These apps all have settings where you can change the time that is shown and also show the constellations.

First up, I was taking photos of the Moon using my new Moon filter and got curious about a cool looking crater that turned out to be the Copernicus Crater—Named after Nicolas Copernic, the Polish astronomer and mathematician. He wrote the book on the heliocentric system in which the Earth and planets spin and rotate around the Sun, which revolutionized Astronomy. Prior to that, the Earth was considered the center of the Universe. He held off publishing “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” as he feared reprisals. He was shown the final printed pages outlining his theories on his death bed in 1533. “He is reputed to have awoken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at his book and died peacefully.”

I enjoy looking at the edge of the Moon’s shadow, as you can get a better idea of what those craters look like.

I also tried using my Moon Filter on Jupiter and Mars as well. The skies seemed clear that night, but it was reported that the storms that were coming in made the upper atmosphere very turbulent, so the two planets are not as clear as I was hoping for. You can see the “spot” on Jupiter though, and Mars was showing its colors.

The big deal this month was the occultation of Mars by the Moon on December 7th. Occultations happen whenever one object passes in front of another, blocking the one in the background out. It’s different from a transit, which is where one passes in front of the other, but you can still see both. I’m pretty new at photographing these events, but I thought I’d like to show the progression of Mars as it races toward the Moon, then reappears on the other side. I also labeled the photos to record the time, to give an idea of how fast this took place.

Until next time, Clear Skies!

Hank