Celestial Events This Month
• Moon Occults Venus. Tonight, for those of you in Western Europe, the Moon will pass in front of Venus in the late afternoon or early evening (December 1). Venus will disappear behind the shaded part of the Moon's face, then reappear from the brightly-lit crescent. You'll need no optics to see this, but a pair of binoculars or telescope will improve the view.
• Moon Occults Pleiades. On the night of December 10-11, the Moon gets in the way again. Those of us in North America will see a nearly-full Moon occult the Pleiades around 2:30 a.m. Eastern and 10:30 p.m. Pacific. (The 4-hour difference is due to the different viewing angle between the east and west coasts, not just the standard 3-hour time difference). A small telescope will give you a fine view.
• Geminid meteor shower. This is one of the finest of the year, surpassed only by the Perseids. The shower peaks on the night of December 13-14. The radiant (the point in the sky from which most of the meteors appear to originate) is just north of the bright star Castor in Gemini. In a good year, you can see 100-150 meteors an hour. But this will not be a good year, alas: the full Moon this month obscures all but the brightest meteors.
• Solstice. Winter Solstice occurs at 12:04 UTC on December 21. This is the shortest/longest day of the year in the northern/southern hemisphere and marks the beginning of winter/summer.
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