Mercury joins Venus and Spica in the southeastern predawn sky this week.

Mars remains high in southern sky after sunset all week; the Moon will appear near Mars on Dec. 14th.

See if you can spot all these objects in the south-southwestern sky at dusk on Dec. 11th.

Observing Target: Fomalhaut
The star Fomalhaut (see above image) is one of the brightest stars in the sky; it is a main sequence class A star approximately 25 light-years from the Sun. In a small telescope, it looks pretty much like any another bright star – but this star has a story!

A ring of dust was discovered around this star, being shepherded by a large exoplanet with a 2000-year orbit! This exoplanet has be directly imaged using the Hubble Space Telescope.

This humorous video about exoplanet Fomalhaut B was released before Halloween 2012:
The Moon
The Moon is a waxing crescent, visible toward the southwest in early evening. The Moon will be at first quarter on Dec. 15th, visible high in the southern sky in early evening. After Dec. 15th, the Moon will be a waxing gibbous, visible to the southeast in early evening, up for most of the night.
The Sun
We have a sunspot – a small one, and as of this writing an unnamed one… I did a bit of searching, but could not find who assigns the Active Region (AR) number to sunspots – so I asked:
https://twitter.com/BalrogsLair/status/1072464840176869377
Coronal holes remain open at both poles – the southern hole appearing much larger than the last few weeks. You can see a region of coronal activity slightly north of the equator where the sunspot is developing.
WOW! If you were lucky, you got to see one of the spectacular looping prominences that appeared on the Sun’s limb over the last couple days.
The solar wind speed is 516.4 km/sec (↑), with a density of 5.8 protons/cm3 (↓).
You can create your own time-lapse movies of the Sun here: AIA/HMI Browse Data.
You can browse all the SDO images of the Sun from 2010 to the present here: Browse SDO archive.
Asteroids
Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid |
Date(UT)
|
Miss Distance
|
Velocity (km/s)
|
Diameter (m)
|
2018 XG |
2018-Dec-07
|
3.8 LD
|
9.2
|
17
|
2018 WX1 |
2018-Dec-07
|
4.8 LD
|
9
|
54
|
2018 XW |
2018-Dec-08
|
9.3 LD
|
8.3
|
37
|
2013 VX4 |
2018-Dec-09
|
4.1 LD
|
6.6
|
65
|
2001 XG1 |
2018-Dec-10
|
7.9 LD
|
14.2
|
78
|
2018 VX6 |
2018-Dec-10
|
16.6 LD
|
11.2
|
74
|
2015 XX169 |
2018-Dec-13
|
17 LD
|
5.8
|
12
|
2018 VO9 |
2018-Dec-15
|
2.6 LD
|
2.9
|
15
|
2017 XQ60 |
2018-Dec-21
|
11.3 LD
|
15.6
|
47
|
163899 |
2018-Dec-22
|
7.4 LD
|
6.2
|
1232
|
418849 |
2018-Dec-23
|
16.6 LD
|
17.6
|
269
|
2014 AD16 |
2019-Jan-04
|
12.9 LD
|
9.4
|
12
|
2016 AZ8 |
2019-Jan-07
|
11.6 LD
|
9.1
|
224
|
2013 YM2 |
2019-Jan-09
|
7.3 LD
|
4.3
|
20
|
2018 XN |
2019-Jan-14
|
11.9 LD
|
5.6
|
60
|
2013 CW32 |
2019-Jan-29
|
13.9 LD
|
16.4
|
148
|
2013 RV9 |
2019-Feb-06
|
17.9 LD
|
5.9
|
68
|
Notes: LD means “Lunar Distance.” 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. Table from SpaceWeather.com
Near-Earth objects (NEOs) discovered this month: 18, this year: 1862, all time: 19261.
Potentially hazardous asteroids: 1936 (as of Nov. 20, 2018)
Minor Planets discovered: 789,069 (as of Oct. 30, 2018)
Fireballs
On Dec. 10, 2018, the NASA All Sky Fireball Network reported 33 fireballs.
(25 sporadics, 6 Geminids, 1 December Monocerotid, 1 sigma Hydrid)

Geminid Meteor Shower
Earth is entering the debris stream from comet 3200 Phaethon. Members of the International Meteor Organization report seeing more than 10 meteors per hour, rates that could increase 8-10-fold by Dec. 14th, when the shower is at its peak. The best time to see meteors is during the hours before dawn; Geminid meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Gemini is high in the sky. SpaceWeather.com photo gallery
[iframe src=”https://www.meteorshowers.org/view/iau-4″ width=”100%” height=”400″]
Comets
Comet 41P/Wirtanen being imaged by astrophotographer buddy Doug Bock, Dec. 10, 2018.
https://twitter.com/Mars_1956/status/1072312991830458374
Wow Doug… there’s a LOT going on in all those windows!
The Solar System
This is the position of the planets and a couple spacecraft in the solar system; the Parker Solar Probe has recrossed the orbit of Venus.

Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is very near the planet Jupiter!

Very near Jupiter…
Spacecraft
OSIRIS-REx – Discovers Water on Asteroid Bennu!
Mars InSight – “Hears” Martian Wind!
Voyager 2 – Enters Interstellar Space!
-Data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive
Apps used for this post:
NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission simulator – free for the PC /MAC.
I maintain the unofficial NASA Eyes Facebook page.
Stellarium: a free open source planetarium app for PC/MAC/Linux. It’s a great tool for planning observing sessions.