"Triple conjunction" just 24 hours away: the highlight of the final month

First Jupiter and Venus crept closer towards each other and since yesterday the crescent Moon is joining the picture: going backwards in time, selected views from Germany, various locations and Australia on Nov. 30, the U.S., Germany, various places, Germany again and Australia on Nov. 29, various sites on Nov. 28, Germany, Austria and Australia on Nov. 27, the U.S. on Nov. 24 and Austria on Nov. 23 - celestial mechanics in action! And the best is to come tomorrow.

• Dec. 1: Close conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon, as previewed here (with this, this, this and this preview N-America- and this one Australia-oriented). For Europe there will actually be an occultation of Venus by the Moon as previewed here, here and here!
  
  
• Dec. 4/5: Comet C/2008 T2 (Cardinal) approaches the North Pole of the sky to within 7 arc minutes! The comet is at about 13th magnitude.
  
  
• Dec. 7: The Trans-Neptunian Object (20,000) Varuna occults a star - with ongoing astrometry the predictions for the ground track have it now pretty stable cutting through the deep South Atlantic.
  
  
• Dec. 31: Jupiter will be 1.2° north of Mercury which is experiencing a minor evening visibility. Also Saturn's rings are almost seen from the edge.
  
  
• Dec. 31: After a long time there will be once again a leap second, making 2008 one second longer - and thus delaying the beginning of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 ...

So much for the predictable highlights of Dec. 2008.

In other news the first meteorites that fell after the well-documented Canadian bolide of Nov. 20 have been found and celebrated widely (see here and here and here and here and here and here for coverage and pictures). • Another Canadian bolide - and a rumbling sound in Wales. • According to at least one theorist the Leonids in 2009 could reach a ZHR of 500, i.e. 5 times the typical Perseids. Others haven't confirmed that yet. • Comet Borrelly with a long tail on Nov. 30. • Sometimes here true live images of comets can be seen.

• There is a possible nova in Carina with 7th mag. • And finally the toolbag lost during the 1st EVA of STS-126 has not only been filmed near Eta Psc (which made the videographer kind of famous), it has also been sighted visually, sometimes at 6.5 mag., sometimes even naked-eye, leading the ISS by several minutes already. Predictions are easy to get, and even public events have been proposed - while parodies of the incident abound ...