Astronomy news for the three-week period starting Friday, May
30, 2008.
Skylights will next appear June 20, 2008, just in time for the
Summer Solstice.
The triple week spans the phases
from new Moon on Tuesday,
June 3, through the first quarter on
Tuesday the 10th, to full on Wednesday
the 18th. During the first part of our period, the Moon appears as
a thin waning crescent moving into dawn,
while during the tail-end of it, you'll see a bit of the waning gibbous. With the Sun set to
pass its highest point on the ecliptic at the Summer Solstice (practically on
the Gemini-Taurus border) the night of Friday
the 20th (in North America), this full Moon will be the most
southerly, and for northerners the lowest, of the year, when it
will be found passing through Sagittarius near the Winter
Solstice.
As it moves along its orbit, the Moon will make a close pass to the
south of Mars
the night of Saturday the 7th, the red planet's
polar secrets soon
to be revealed. The following evening, the Moon is
then to be found just below Leo's
Regulus as it prepares to pass
south of Saturn, the trio
making a fine sight. After a long wait, while the Moon plunges
deeper to the south, it runs just under Antares in Scorpius the night of Monday the 16th on its way to
Sagittarius on Wednesday the 18th, finally winding up to the west
of Jupiter on
the night of Thursday the 19th. Just six hours before new, the
Moon goes through perigee, where
it is closest to the Earth, giving us notably high and low tides at the
coasts.
The three evening planets remain in the same relative order: from
west to east, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter. Moving rapidly through
western Cancer, half a degree a day
(the angular diameter of the full Moon), the red planet will cross
the border into Leo on Tuesday the 10th as it approaches Regulus
and Saturn. As they get closer, so do their setting times, Mars
(in the middle of June) going down at midnight Daylight Time,
Saturn only half an hour later. On the other side of the sky, big
old Jupiter climbs upward in Sagittarius at 11 PM the first of
June, an hour earlier by the middle of the month, so bright you
can't really miss it.
Invisibility reigns over the other two ancient planets. On
Saturday the 7th, Mercury passes
inferior conjunction between us and the Sun (but well to the south
of it, no transit). Then
less than two days later, Venus passes
superior conjunction with the Sun (on the other side). Watch for
this most brilliant planet this fall and winter.
While the deep southern constellations are making a fine
impact on the nightly sky, we can't neglect the northern ones. As
the sky darkens, Bootes and Arcturus (the brightest star of the
northern hemisphere) lie high to the south. Together they begin a
string of fine constellations that extends to the east, starting
with the graceful curve of Corona
Borealis, which leads the eye to the dimmer figure of Hercules. Then farther along you can
hardly miss brilliant Vega: number
two in brightness in the north, just behind Arcturus. Look for the
pretty parallelogram of Lyra to
the southwest of Vega. The quintet finishes with first magnitude
Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, which tipped upside down becomes the
Northern Cross. Beyond Cygnus, which holds a wonderful part of the
Milky Way, lies Pegasus and autumn, and it's too
early to think about that.
