As dusk is ending on December 31st—New Year's Eve—the ringed planet Saturn may be seen rising in the East, with a Waxing Gibbous Moon high overhead.
(Shown about an hour after sunset for mid-Northern latitudes.)
Scheduled air date: 2003 Dec 22-28
As dusk is ending on December 31st—New Year's Eve—the ringed planet Saturn
may be seen rising in the East, with a Waxing Gibbous Moon high overhead.
(Shown about an hour after sunset for mid-Northern latitudes.)
As the night progresses, Saturn will rise higher and higher, until it reaches
its highest point as we celebrate the beginning of 2004 at midnight.
Because this is the night that Saturn is at opposition—the point in its
orbit directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth—it will appear at its
highest, brightest and closest. And this particular opposition of Saturn
is better than any that have occurred since 1974, or will again until 2030.
(Saturn's position relative to the horizon is shown at one-hour intervals from
dusk to midnight, December 31 for mid-Northern latitudes. The meridian is
an imaginary line running from due North to due South.)
If you wish to view illustrations for other episodes, please see our Star Gazer Illustrated directory.
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Illustrations on this page were created using
TheSky Astronomy
Software, an advanced desktop planetarium program designed for Windows. Copyright © 1999-2006 by Software Bisque, Inc. |