Mercury can be seen at the end of the year in the evening sky. It will appear low over the southwest horizon at dusk from about December 25th and will gain slightly in height until December 31st: on New Year's Eve, you will find the -0.7 mag bright planet at 17:06 CET, when the Sun has sunk six degrees below the horizon and the civil twilight ends, 4.5 degrees high in the sky. Binoculars help with the search - and Venus, which (again on New Year's Eve) is located 6.2 degrees northwest and thus parallel to the horizon on the right.
Venus ends the year 2021 as an evening star, but as it has been since spring, it does not reach a particularly distinctive heights: At the beginning of the month you will find it at the end of bourgeois twilight (4:58 p.m. CET on December 1st, 5:06 p.m. Monthly last) almost twelve degrees above the southwestern horizon; At the end of the month it is only five degrees. Her long evening visibility approaches its end: Venus moves towards the earth, its lower conjunction. Your angle diameter therefore increases, in the monthly run from 39 to 60 arc second. Its light phase, which is visible from the earth, is reduced from 28 percent to only 2.6 percent on New Year's Eve. The decreasing light phase is partially compensated for by the larger area of the venus slench: the brightness only drops easily from –4.7 to –4.3 Mag. The low horizont height makes telescopic observation difficult after sunset. From December 6th to 7th, the increasing moon passes Venus south (see "evening star, gas giants and moon").
Mars can be detected very early in the morning as a 1.6 mag bright star at the beginning of dusk. At the onset of civil twilight (07:19 CET on 1 December, on 31 20 minutes later) it is a good seven degrees above the southeast horizon on the first of the month, and nine degrees on New Year's Eve morning. In the last week of December, Mars passes at a distance of about 4.5 degrees the approximately the same colored, but with 1.1 mag currently brighter Antares in Scorpio. The comparable red tones of Mars and Antares gave them their name: »Ant-Ares« means »counter-Mars«. On the morning of December 31, the waning crescent moon joins the duo, located about seven degrees west of Mars (see "Moon, Mars, Antares").
Jupiter can be seen high in the south after sunset, in the course of the month rather in the southwest, as a striking, 2.2 mag brighter planet. Its period of visibility ends: on December 1, the giant planet goes down at 22:23 CET, on New Year's Eve already at 20:53. This means that at the end of the year there are at most around three hours left to view the planet, its moons and its atmosphere in the telescope. The waxing moon is about six degrees southeast of Jupiter on the evening of December 9 (see "Evening Star, Gas giants and Moon").
Saturn disappears from the sky stage on December 1st at 8:52 p.m. CET, on December 31 at 7:09 p.m. The ring planet also says goodbye: for observing the planet at the beginning of the month, about three, only an hour left at the end of the year, and only with quite low horizont height. Saturn is the middle and with 0.7 MAGE LIGHT -SHOUSE LIFT in the triple chain from Jupiter, Saturn and Venus, which adorns the December evening sky. The moon passes Saturn from December 7th to 8th south.
Uranus is, 5.7 mag bright, on clear, moonless nights just visible to the naked eye in the constellation Aries, about eleven degrees southeast of the 2.0 mag bright star Alpha Arietis (α Ari). In the telescope, it appears at higher magnifications as a pale green disc measuring 3.7 arc seconds. On December 1, the planet culminates at 22:14 CET and sets at 05:34. By 31 December, these times will be reduced to 20:13 and 03:32 respectively.
Neptune is in the constellation of Aquarius, on the border with the fish. It is 7.8 Mag light and thus only to be seen with binoculars or telescope. The nearest lighter star is still the 4.2 Mag bright phi aquari (φ aqr); Neptune is about three degrees northeastern. On December 1st, the Neptal purse in the telescope 2.3 sheet -seconds will pass the meridian at 7:03 p.m. CET. Neptune becomes the object of the first half of the night; On New Year's Eve, the distant Planet goes under at 10:46 p.m.
