As the Moon and January wane, the planets on the morning side of Earth each get a chance to shine brightly near our only natural satellite. The last two, very cold, dawns have had the moon on either side of Mars as our planet catches up with our rusty surfaced neighbor. The star just below the moon this morning was Spica, far and away the brightest star in Virgo. Saturday morning will find the moon within a degree or two of the gorgeous ringing world, Saturn. The next two mornings, the thinning crescent will slide above Scorpio, with its bright, red heart, Antares. Antares means "rival of Mars", comparing it's color to Mars will show you why. As the moon gets closer to completing its moonthly orbit of Earth it will be near the newly risen morning star, Venus. The thin crescent will be upper right of Venus on the morning of the 28 and lower left of planet on the 29th. After that, the moon will pass between the Earth and Sun, lined up directly between the two just past 4:30pm on January 30th, the new moon.
Jupiter and the bright stars of winter dominate the evening winter sky. Tonight around 7pm all four Galilean moons will be visible, two on each side of the giant gas world. In the cold, (maybe) clear air they should be easy to spot in even binoculars. The moonless sky and a dark location should also make it easy to see the winter portion of our galaxy, the appropriately named, Milky Way.
Bundle up and check out the sky, tonight on Earth.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment