As May ended, Mercury had just been at greatest elongation and began its retreat from the morning sky. It won’t be at superior conjunction until July 1, so most sky watchers have about the first half of this month to try to spot it. The messenger planet is predicted to be at dichotomy—its semi-circle phass–on […]
For northern hemisphere sky watchers, Orion is signaling that winter is long gone. The hunter sets in the early evening. Southern hemisphere observers can take this as a sign of winter. Venus is nearby. It’s close to the star El Nath at the edge of Taurus and Auriga when May starts. Mars starts the month […]
Don’t plan on seeing Jupiter this month. April starts with the big planet retreating from the evening sky toward solar conjunction on the 11th and 12th. Coincidentally, Mercury is at greatest elongation at the same time. After marching into the evening sky, it reaches 19.5° east of the sun. At that time, the messenger planet […]
The month starts with a close paring of Venus and Jupiter. Look west as darkness begins. With binoculars you may spot Vesta nearby. In a telescope, Venus is gibbous and Jupiter has little companions called the Galilean moons because Galileo was the first to see them. Venus traverses Pisces the rest of the month, climbing […]
For comet watchers, the most exciting thing this month is sure to be C/2022 E3 (ZTF). It will be closest to Earth on the 1st at approximately 12 hours UT at 42.47 million kilometers. That’s 26.39 million miles or 0.284 astronomical units. Comet brightness is notoriously hard to predict. It’s expected to be visible to […]
Happy New Year! 2023 starts with Mercury in retreat. After its close encounter with Venus on the last evenings of 2022, the messenger planet is sinking fast into the sunset. Depending on where you are, it may already be too late for you to see it on the first night of the year because it […]
Venus and Mercury are evening objects and hard to see as the month starts. Observers close to the equator and in the low southern latitudes have the best view of Mercury pulling up higher than Venus alongside the stars of Sagittarius. Mercury is close to Kaus Borealis (the northern bow star) on the evening of […]
Our November evenings start with Saturn close to the meridian and Jupiter risen already well above the horizon at sunset. Uranus is rising when darkness begins. Mars rises mid-evening. It’s a little brighter and left of Aldebaran rising at about the same time. Aldebaran leads one leg of a V-shaped asterism called the Hyades, in […]
The moon is up in the evening approaching first quarter at October’s start. Southern lunistice will be on the 2nd at 27.4° from the equator. The first quarter phase will be the next day. Then on the 4th, the moon’s at perigee 369,400 km from Earth. The thickening gibbous disk passes by Saturn on the […]
Mercury leaves the evening sky, goes through inferior conjunction, and enters the morning sky this month. It’ll be better in the morning sky for northern hemisphere sky watchers this month than it was in the evening for them last month. It’ll take until the last few days of the month to show up though. Venus […]