dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (12/15/85)
Tonight and tomorrow morning are good times to look for some planets. More on where to look -- after this. December 15 Jupiter and the Moon, Saturn and Mercury There are a couple of planets you can check out tonight and Monday morning. That bright object near the crescent moon tonight is the planet Jupiter. Both the moon and Jupiter will be in the southwest at sundown. A crescent moon is always good to watch as twilight deepens -- and doubly interesting when a planet as bright as Jupiter appears near the crescent on the dome of the sky. Monday morning two planets appear very near each other in the east shortly before sunrise. Saturn and Mercury will be conspicuous by their nearness to each other in our sky -- only about a moon's diameter apart. That third object to the lower right of the two planets is a star called Beta Scorpii. Mercury is the planet that travels nearest the sun -- rapidly orbiting the sun once every eighty-eight days. Saturn is the farthest planet we can see with just our naked eye -- and moves around the sun once every thirty-one YEARS. Two weeks ago Mercury passed between the Earth and sun -- and is now swinging around ahead of the Earth in orbit. Saturn is on the far side of the sun from us right now. Six months will pass before our planet catches up and passes between Saturn and the sun. It happens that Monday morning speedy little Mercury is near our line of sight of Saturn. When you stand outside before dawn tomorrow and look east toward these two planets -- Saturn and Mercury -- you're looking across the expanse of our solar system. Script by Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin