Mars is in conjunction with the star Spica for the next couple weeks, and Jupiter rises a bit earlier each morning in the eastern predawn sky. You might catch a short glimpse of Venus as it rises shortly before the Sun.
For an observing challenge, see if you can spot the zodiacal light in the eastern sky a few hours before dawn; use Mars and Spica as a guide – you’ll need to be in a dark sky location.
The light of the waxing gibbous Moon will make Uranus a poor observing target – the Moon, however, should be a great observing target all week long. The Moon will be full on Dec. 3rd.
For an observing challenge, see if you can spot Saturn and Mercury in the southwestern sky at 5:30 PM – look quick, you’ll only have a few minutes to see them before they set!
The Sun
Sunspots come and go – last week one vanished from view, this week sunspot AR2689 appeared slightly north of center on Nov. 24th, and is rotating away towards the limb of the Sun.
The “C” shaped filament I mentioned last week still remains, and has rotated almost to the limb of the Sun – I expect to see some interesting prominences over the next week.
The northern coronal hole has lost it’s south-reaching peninsula from last week, and now the southern coronal hole has peninsula reaching northward. The “>>>” pattern caused by the Sun’s differential rotation is easily visible in this image:
You can view the Sun in multiple frequencies, in near real-time here: SDO-The Sun Now
The Sky Overhead
The Inner Solar System
This is the position of the planets in the inner solar system simulated using NASA Eyes on the Solar System.
Apps used for this post:
Stellarium: a free open source planetarium app for PC/MAC/Linux.
NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission app – free for the PC /MAC.