[Bluearrowll]

What's in the sky tonight?
December 4, 2012

-Sometime between 6 and 8 each evening now (depending on how far east or west you live in your time zone), bright Vega sinking in the northwest, and equally bright Capella climbing in the northeast, will be at exactly the same height. How accurately can you time their balance moment for your location?

-Mars (magnitude +1.2, in Sagittarius) remains low in the southwest in evening twilight. In a telescope it's just a tiny blob 4.4 arcseconds in diameter.

Astro Picture of the Day:
December 4, 2012

Source:
What's happening at the north pole of Saturn? A vortex of strange and complex swirling clouds. The center of this vortex was imaged in unprecedented detail last week by the robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. These clouds lie at the center of the unusual hexagonal cloud system that surrounds the north pole of Saturn. Saturn's north pole precessed into sunlight just a few years ago, with Cassini taking only infrared images of the shadowed region previously. The above image is raw and unprocessed and is being prepared for release in 2013. Several similar images of the region have recently been condensed into a movie. Planetary scientists are sure to continue to study this most unusual cloud formation for quite some time.