The year 2018 ended with two great celestial events. We had the Geminid meteor shower that peaked on the night of December 13/14 as well as the great appearance of Comet 46/P Wirtanen. The comet was closest to the earth on December 16 and was near the Pleiades star cluster. Wirtanen is now moving towards Ursa Major and fading rapidly.

The constellation Pegasus is easily identified by its large square of stars. When rising in the east, it takes on the appearance of a giant baseball diamond. With 1,121 square degrees of sky, Pegasus ranks 7th in overall size. It is also one of the original constellations listed by the astronomer Ptolemy back in the 2nd century.

Opposed to the Big Dipper that is seen all year round, Sagittarius the Archer appears low in the south skies for only a few months. With so many celestial objects to hunt down, we definitely have our work cut out.

This month the constellation Bootes is high in the sky and just past the meridian. Its prominent star called Arcturus is 37 light-years (ly) away and shines at zero magnitude. Simply follow the stars in the Big Dipper’s handle as it arcs down to Arcturus. This spectral class K0 supergiant shines 113 times brighter than our Sun measure 26 solar diameters across or one quarter the size of the orbit of Mercury.

The most abundant celestial objects to hunt are galaxies. Of the estimated two trillion galaxies that make up the known universe, the average telescope has the ability to see only a small tiny of this number. The New General Catalogue (NGC) contains 7,840 objects with more than 80% being galaxies. Mind you, the catalogue encompasses both north and south hemispheres.

Hydra is the largest constellation in the night sky measuring 104 arc minutes in length and takes up 1,303 square degrees in area. This constellation is dotted with numerous galaxies, nebulae and star clusters.