On a very cold (for us) and clear December morning, the moon showing a thin crescent rises above the eastern horizon.
Earlier, I was able to see Saturn about 10° to the left of “la bella Luna” but the morning twilight obscured the normally dazzling planet as dawn drew closer.
Not seen in this view are the crisp outlines of the San Gabriel and Santiago peaks jutting up from the horizon.
This was a very nice morning for vistas, both terrestrial and celestial.
I took this shot with my little Canon PowerShot 3.2 Mega Pixel camera. Not as high resolution as Damsel’s Digital Rebel, but does a fair job. I used a little tripod to steady the camera for a longer exposure in the reduced light.
This may be more evidence that the Sun is entering one of it’s most active 
Earth-orbiting satellites detected a major X9-class solar flare this morning at 1035 UT (5:35 a.m. EST). The source: big, new sunspot 929, which is emerging over the Sun’s eastern limb. GOES-13 captured this X-ray image of the blast:
Late Wednesday night, as Damsel and I were walking the dogs, the skies were exceptionally clear for the urban Los Angeles area. We were looking towards the “
There’s a lot of interesting things to see in the sky today – the bad news is they’re all happening in the direction of the Sun and impossible to see without special equipment. The good news, however, is that there are ways to see these events without looking directly at the Sun, which is ill-advised and likely dangerous to your vision.