Starry Night This Week

Each week most PBS stations air "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer", the world's first and only weekly TV series on naked-eye astronomy. The Starry Night images on this page illustrate the show for the week of Monday December 30, 2002. You can view the complete show script, or watch a RealPlayer video of the show.

2003 : The Year Of the Amateur Telescope/ A Cosmic Preview

2003 is a great year for planetary observers. Jupiter will be at its brightest in February and Saturn has its rings tilted at their widest. This view shows the sky on December 12th at 9:00 PM, as seen from mid-northern latitudes.

The planet to keep an eye on is Mars. It will grow in brightness 60 times and will be the closest it as ever been to Earth in the last 60, 000 years, on August 27th, 2003.This view shows the sky on December 12th at 7:00 AM, as seen from mid-northern latitudes.