Good morning, Washington. Did you remember to look up and take in the Venus, Jupiter and crescent Moon alignment last night? Frequent Flickr contributor philliefan99 took a bunch of amazing shots of the planets from the National Mall area, including this one featuring the Jefferson Memorial.

Cheh Subpoenas BOEE Official: Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh has issued a subpoena to compel Sylvia Goldsberry-Adams, executive director of the Board of Elections and Ethics, to submit to a deposition. Goldsberry-Adams had been scheduled to testify at a previous hearing, but she failed to show up (she claimed to have had a medical emergency). Cheh also announced that she will ask the Council to pass a resolution to enforce subpoenas on Sequoia Voting Systems, the manufacturer of the District’s voting machines.

D.C. GOP Still After Michael A. Brown: Virtually everyone reported yesterday that the D.C. Republican Committee announced it intends to take its fight against the certification of election results giving an At-large D.C. Council seat to Michael A. Brown to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The party has argued previously that Brown is not actually an Independent, and that he is affiliated with the Democratic party, thus making him ineligible to serve as the non-Democratic At-large member required under the Home Rule Charter. For his part, Brown was predictably dismissive of the legal challenge.

Capitol Visitor Center Opens: Six years and $621 million later, the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center actually opens to the public today at 1 p.m. Feel free to swing by between 1 and 4:30 p.m., when the center will be hosting a sort of open house. In most of its coverage, the Washington Post takes the position that the Visitor Center is pretty darn impressive, even if it was one of worst managed government projects ever. The Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio is a quite a bit more circumspect, focusing on the center’s exorbitant cost.

Briefly Noted: Protesters call for more affordable housing for District residents living with HIV and AIDS … Traffic deaths down in Virginia over Thanksgiving weekend … Elderly man rescued from Northeast house fire … Arrest made in October homicide of 37-year-old David Emmett Tucker.