| | December 27
Spectacular Moon and Venus | | | |
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 | | | As the year wanes, the young moon returns to the west after sunest. We show Saturn on our chart, too, but it'll take a deliberate effort (and possibly binoculars) to spot it. Don't miss the moon and Venus Saturday evening! Read more. | | |
| | | Between now and early January, you'll find us in your inbox from time to time, but not every day. Happy new year! | | | This weekend … Don't miss the young moon and Venus | | If your sky is clear, you can catch the whisker-thin crescent moon - and possibly Saturn - in the west at dusk tonight. You'll surely see dazzling Venus, above them. This young moon will be fresh from its ring of fire eclipse a day earlier. On Saturday and Sunday evenings, the moon will be even easier to catch. It'll be closest to Venus on Saturday. A wondrous sky scene for the whole world! #OneSky Read more. | | | | | | | | Correction: We mistakenly said that - for an annular solar eclipse to occur - the new moon has to be near apogee, its farthest point from Earth. It's often true that - during an annular eclipse - the moon is near apogee. But that wasn't the case on December 26. In fact, the December new moon was almost exactly at its mean distance from Earth. Yet - at mid-eclipse - the moon appeared too small from Earth to cover the sun's disk completely. Why? The answer is that - at this time of year - Earth is close to perihelion, its closest point to the sun for the year. In 2020, Earth's perihelion will come on January 5 at 07:48 UTC. So, in our sky around now, the sun's disk now appears slightly larger than usual: hence, the December 26 annular solar eclipse. Cool ... yes? | | | | | |
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|  | | Photos of yesterday's ring of fire eclipse | | View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Here's the progression into and out of yesterday's annular eclipse, from Tumon Bay, Guam. Eliot Herman reported: "It was a beautiful day in Guam to observe the eclipse mostly clear blue skies with a little marine haze on the coast. These images were captured with a Questar telescope and a Nikon D850 camera using a Baader solar filter." Thank you, Eliot! View more photos of the eclipse. | | | | | |
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 | | Photos of yesterday's 'ring of fire' eclipse | View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Nikunj Rawal wrote from Jamnagar, Gujarat, India: "... 73% maximum eclipse at 09:17 a.m. at Jamnagar, India on December 26. Was worth experience to witness and capture the phenomenon using a long-focal-length telephoto lens with well planned preparations of 2 weeks ...The annular phase of this solar eclipse was not visible here, unlike South Indian states. This sequence is a combination of 2 consecutive exposures taken with the same camera using the same settings — one taken of the landscape and another of the background of sun using 3.8mm Baader filter." Thank you, Nikunj! View more photos of the eclipse. | | |
