Bright Planet Notes for 2012:

Mercury: Visible (east, pre-dawn) for first week of January; reappears the last week of February (west, dusk) and into mid-March; reappears mid-June (west, dusk) into July; reappears (east, pre-dawn) early/mid August through to late August; reappears early December (east, pre-dawn) until mid-December, when it is lost for the last time to the Sun this year.

Venus: Visible (west, dusk) January through mid-May; reappears (east, pre-dawn) late June through early December. However, Venus is so bright, it can be visible even during the day, if you know how to do it. Warning: if it's too close to the Sun, it not only won't be visible, the danger of permanent eye damage from accidentally looking at the Sun itself increases greatly. Get advice from an amateur astronomer experienced in daytime Venus viewing before attempting this!

Mars: Visible after midnight January; late evening in February, and early evening by March on through mid-June; reappears (east, pre-dawn) mid-October through end of year.

Jupiter: Visible high in the south early January moving west through to early May; reappears (east, pre-dawn) early September through December as it goes higher, earlier in the wee hours of the morning.

Saturn: Visible low (east, pre-dawn) in January; visible mid-evening by late-April, and early evening through early August - lost to Sun through to end of year.

Uranus: Visible January high in the south early evening, being lost to Sun by end of the month; reappears 3 hours after midnight in late June; visible again mid-October early evening (east, moving higher toward the south) and through end of year.

Neptune: Visible mid-to-late August early evening in the southeast, rising higher, earlier towards the south and then west through late November before getting lost to the Sun.

New Moons for 2011: 1/23, 2/21, 3/22, 4/21, 5/20, 6/19, 7/19, 8/17, 9/16, 10/15, 11/13, 12/13.

Meteor showers for 2012 (green text is good)

Four of this year's showers (green text) are favorably absent most or all of the Moon, and offer the best viewing opportunities. Note that the best time to view meteor showers is usually between 2am and astronomical dawn. Also, the showers themselves occur for days before and after their peaks, and can still be worth watching, off-peak.

Clear Sky Clock for Chabot Space & Science Center This handy utility predicts what the skies are likely to be like within the next two days. It may take a minute to figure out, but after that, it's quite simple, and very useful.

Direct link for the weekend viewing prospects at Chabot Observatory (usually posted around 5pm on Friday and Saturday evening).

The lunar phase calendar (above) was created with a very cool program called Quick Phase, which generates all kinds of info on the phases of the moon. If you're interested in getting it yourself, click here.

*transit - to cross from the eastern half of the sky to the western half, or vice-versa. When an object transits in an east-to-west direction, it's at its highest elevation above the horizon. This is the best time to view any object, because the higher it is in the sky, the fewer layers of Earth's atmosphere will interfere with, and distort, the image.

For more info about What's Up this month, check out Sky & Telescope's web page.