Photo of the Week.. The Moon, three days before new, visits Venus the
morning of September 12, 2012.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, October 5, 2012.
Full phase having taken place
the night of September 29, the Moon begins the week in the last
stages of its waning gibbous phase as it
prepares to pass third quarter the night
of Sunday, October 7 (actually the morning of Monday the 8th after
Moonrise for North America). It thereafter wanes as a thinning crescent. The evening of Friday the 5th,
the Moon will make a pretty sight as it rises below (to the east
of) bright Jupiter. Even better will be the morning of Friday
the 12th, when the waning crescent will make a fine sight to the
right of rising
Venus. Look too the previous morning to see the Moon about
equally to the right of the much fainter star Regulus in Leo, the Moon then well up and to the right of
brilliant Venus.
Faded Mars, which sets just a half hour after the end of
twilight, is difficult to see. With Saturn and
Mercury quite out of sight in evening twilight's glow, the
planetary sky quite belongs to Jupiter and Venus, the giant of the
Solar System rising around 9:30 PM Daylight Time still in central
Taurus to the northeast of Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster. Venus then ascends
about 4 AM to the east (and a bit south) of Regulus as noted above.
Back in the evening sky, Saturn and Mercury invisibly come into
conjunction with each other in bright western twilight on Saturday
the 6th.
By 9 PM, the Summer Triangle
of Altair (to the south), Deneb (northeast), and Vega (northwest) has slipped past the
meridian to be replaced by the iconic
Great Square of Pegasus, which looks like a giant
diamond in the early evening southeastern sky. More or less between
Altair and the southern side of the Great Square you might find (in
a dark sky) a pair of fainter stars on a north-south line that
makes most of the ancient constellation of Equuleus, the Little Horse. With Sagittarius also moving off stage, the Zodiacal constellation of note
becomes Capricornus, which at 9 PM
Daylight Time straddles the southern celestial meridian looking
rather like an upside-down old fashioned cocked hat. Wait awhile
then to see Betelgeuse in Orion coming up about two hours
after Jupiter.
