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GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - The month starts with a first crescent Moon and the full Moon follows on the 14th. New Moon is on the 29th, but the first crescent will only be visible the following evening.
It is also the winter solstice for us in the southern hemisphere, which occurs on the 21st. It is the time of year when the Sun reaches its lowest point in our midday sky, a mere 33 degrees above the northern horizon at midday.
This is also the shortest day of the year.
This is because the Earth's south pole is tilted furthest away from the Sun which is overhead the Tropic of Cancer.
It is however not the time of latest sunrise and earliest sunset; the reason for this being that the Earth is not a regular time keeper due to the tilt of its axis and its elliptical orbit around the Sun.
Earliest sunset is on the 12th and latest sunrise is on the 30th. For many this is a time of renewal as they can start looking forward to the days getting longer again with the approach of spring and summer.
The glorious alignment of the planets Mars, Venus and Jupiter in the morning sky continues for the first week or so. By month's end, Venus, along with Scorpio the Scorpion will also have set in the west.
As we enter the winter months the evening sky becomes less spectacular to the casual observer. Orion has now all but disappeared from the evening sky, but it makes its reappearance in the morning skies towards the end of the month, as does the small cluster of the Pleiades, or isiLimela, the Digging Stars, their appearance reminding us to start digging the soil in preparation for the new planting season.
Our winter constellation, Scorpius, is now well up in the east with the reddish giant star Antares at its heart. It is the only constellation that looks vaguely like it namesake (see image).
This also means that Orion has now set, as Greek legend had it that in order to stop them fighting there were placed at opposite ends of the night sky!
As I have said before, away from the city lights the Milky Way stretches from north-east to south-west across our night sky. The inconspicuous constellation Vela is low at the south-western end and is home to the "False Cross", low above the horizon.
Above this, the landmark of the southern skies, the Southern Cross and Pointers, now dominate. It is a good time to see the difference between the two "crosses": the Southern Cross is brighter and more compact and easier to find, and of course it has the two bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri pointing to the Cross just to make sure we don't miss it!
PHOTO GALLERY: The Moon and Venus meet
Even though the two pointers appear to be about the same brightness, Alpha Centauri is the nearest naked-eye star to the Sun, being about 4,26 light years away. Beta Centauri is 120 times further away and about times 15 000 brighter.
Alpha Centauri is a double star whose distance was first measured by Henderson, an astronomer at the then Royal Observatory (now South African Astronomical Observatory) here in the Cape in 1832. He failed to publish and it was later, in 1836, credited to Bessel in Germany!
At the other end of the Milky Way is the constellation of Cygnus, which is often referred to as the Northern Cross. To the left, or west, of this, the bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra is visible.
Above Cygnus in the Milky Way is the bright star Altair in the constellation of Aquila. Other bright stars are Spica in the west, Archernar in the south-east and Arcturus in the constellation of Bootes in the north-west.
Cassiopeia: this image from HST and Chandra High-energy X-ray shows the remnants of a supernova. The emissions from specific elements have been colour coded, silicon in red, sulphur in yellow, calcium in green and iron in purple, Still expanding, the outer blast wave is seen in blue hues. The bright, baby-blue speck near the centre is a neutron star, the incredibly dense, collapsed remains of the massive stellar collapse.
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