Tonight’s the last night to get outside and take a look at the last slightly-larger-than-normal-moon of 2016… actually, no, damn it, it’s a supermoon and you can’t tell me otherwise. We’re in the middle of a meteor shower, too, so get outside and look.
This December full moon rises in Sydney at 8:07PM AEDT, six minutes after the 8:01PM sunset. Because of that quick turnaround, it’ll even look bigger than the November supermoon when it’s at the horizon despite being around 0.5 per cent smaller and several hundred kilometres further away.
Where you need to be is somewhere with clear skies and an open field of view towards the eastern horizon, where the moon will rise. Sydney’s conditions are pretty good for moonwatchers tonight, although it’ll still be in the high 20s or even 30 degrees Celsius outside when the sun sets just after 8PM tonight. Melbourne is apparently a little bit cloudier but should still be OK in the right spot.
A bonus is that we’re also currently in the middle of the Geminids meteor shower, which will peak tonight and run into tomorrow. While the meteors will be hard to spot due to the brightness of the full moon, you should be still able to see around 10 or so per hour according to NASA, a far cry from the 120 usual on a dark night.
Let us know in the comments below how your city or town is looking.
Here’s all those facts again from a post last week by our friends at the Sydney Observatory: