It’s an excellent month for stargazers, so I encourage you to take some time out of your busy holiday preparations to enjoy the night sky. There are two respectable meteor showers, and the Moon passes close to five major planets during the month. Brilliant Venus dominates the western sky after sunset, while Jupiter outshines every star as it continues to brighten in the eastern sky before sunrise. And on the last day of 2016, Neptune comes within 0.1º of the planet Mars, the closest approach of these two planets in more than 700 years! Here’s what to see in the night sky this month… [Read more…] about The Sky This Month – December 2016
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The planet Venus is the third brightest object in our skies after the Sun and the Moon. Known since the first humans turned their gaze to the sky, the striking appearance of Venus compelled the ancient Greeks and Romans to name the planet after the goddess of love and beauty. Other cultures, including the Sumerians and the Pawnee in North America also linked this brilliant planet to objects of feminine beauty. The ancient Mayans had a particular interest in Venus and built an observatory at Chichen Itza to, among other things, precisely measure the position of the planet, and some aspects of the Mayan calendar are based on the motions of Venus. While Venus reveals little detail in a telescope, it grows and shrinks and goes through a series of phases similar to the Moon, and comes closer to Earth than any other planet. Here’s a little background on the planet Venus and a few tips to help you see the planet for yourself and understand its apparitions and motion in our skies 
