Moon Will Align With 3 Planets Friday

Star gazers will have a cool event to look at Friday night.  And thankfully the weather will be a bit warmer, too.  You should be able to get a good look at a very rare event. December is often a good month for evening stargazing, and if you have a telescope it might be even better.

Jupiter, Saturn and Venus have lined up in the evening sky and will continue to be prominent features throughout most of December, but this week, the trio will get a visitor.  The Moon!

This week in particular will provide a good opportunity to view the planetary alignment as the crescent moon will join the show, eventually falling in line with Jupiter, Saturn and Venus.

By Friday night, the Moon will be at the top of the line, and it will appear in the southwestern sky just before nightfall.

This celestial alignment will be visible around the world.  If you do not have a telescope, a nice pair of binoculars should do the trick.  You might even get a glimpse of the moons around Saturn and Jupiter.  You might even see a few shooting stars.  Hopefully there will not be too many clouds that will get in the way.  But if you go to an open area, you may have a better chance to get a clear view.

I recall one New Year's Eve getting together with a few friends and someone had a telescope they had set up in the parking lot of their apartment complex and was able to get a pretty good shot of the moon's surface.  So it might be worth it to get out your binoculars and check out the sky.  It doesn't happens too often.