Greetings, stargazers.
This is the time of year to get your astronomer holiday wish list in order and make predictions for the new year. I was surprised to look through my previous columns and realize it has been seven years since I have done either of these things.
When I get asked (usually at this time of year) “what telescope should I get?” my response is invariably “what kind of binoculars do you have?” Make sure you have a good pair of binoculars before you start looking at telescopes. The increase in light-gathering when going to binoculars from your naked eye is amazing. A nice pair of wide-angle, 10x50 binoculars, with antireflective optical coatings and comfortable eye relief still costs less than many entry-level telescopes. And they are much easier to take on hikes and sporting events.
My bang-for-the-buck recommendation for telescopes is still an eight-inch Dobsonian-mounted reflector. The point-and-shoot simplicity and relatively wide fields of view let you find things more easily, so you have more time to look through the eyepiece instead of fiddling with equatorial mounts and uncooperative computers. Save up your pennies for a high-end eyepiece, because those can really enhance your viewing pleasure, even with telescopes that might not cost as much as the eyepiece.
This has been quite a year for astronomical occurrences. There was a total solar eclipse that some of us got to travel to and see. There were several evenings when naked-eye auroras were visible in Southwest Colorado. There was a naked-eye comet with an extremely long tail. I enjoyed the social media posts of what cellphone cameras are capable of these days.
My prediction is that 2025 won’t be as eventful as this last extraordinary year. There is a reasonable chance for the repeat event of another aurora this far south, as the sun is still in the middle of peak activity in its 11-year sunspot cycle. There is always the chance for another long-period comet to show up, but if a new one is discovered soon, it may still be a couple of years before it is visible in our night sky. Comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS is a sungrazer that will reach perihelion on January 13th. It could put on a show, or simply disintegrate like the last sun-grazing comet.
Useful links
Astronomy picture of the day
An Astronomer’s forecast for Durango
http://www.cleardarksky.com/c/DrngoCOkey.html?1
Old Fort Lewis Observatory
http://www.fortlewis.edu/observatory
hakes_c@fortlewis.edu
Venus in the west and Jupiter in the east dominate the evening sky. Saturn is also bright in the southwestern sky, but not nearly as luminous as Venus or Jupiter.
Mars is back, rising in the eastern sky soon after sunset. It should provide some nice views through a telescope over the next few months.
The Geminid Meteor Shower is often one of the best ones of the year. It peaks on Dec. 13 and 14, so it will likely get some significant interference from the full moon that happens on the 15th. It should be darker for the Quadrantid Meteor Shower, which peaks on Jan. 3 and 4. The radiant, the point in the sky where the meteors appear to come from, doesn’t rise until after 11 p.m., so the first quarter moon should have set before the best meteor viewing times.
The winter constellations around Orion are some of the easiest to pick out, and they will be visible for the next few months.
The winter solstice is on the 21st, so enjoy the long, dark nights, but be sure to bundle up.
Charles Hakes teaches in the physics and engineering department at Fort Lewis College and is the director of the Fort Lewis Observatory.