Mercury and Saturn stand side by side in the early-evening sky near the end of February. Note that Neptune is not visible to the naked eye. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly Friday, February 21The Moon passes 0.4° south of the bright red giant Antares in Scorpius this morning at 4 A.M. EST. The pair is visible … Read more
Caption: Venus is the brightest point of light shining at lower left in this gorgeous astrophoto of the February night sky. Credit: Toby Baier (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0) Friday, February 14The dwarf planet 1 Ceres is in conjunction with the Sun at 5 P.M. EST today. While this means we can’t see Ceres for now, … Read more
Friday, February 7 Mighty Jupiter stands high in the east at sunset, dominating the stars of Taurus the Bull as they begin to appear in the deepening darkness. Once the Sun is safely below the horizon, center your telescope on the gas giant — those in the eastern half of the U.S. will see the planet … Read more
During the overnight hours of Feb. 5-6, the moon will pass through the famous Pleiades star cluster while one day past its half-lit first quarter phase. This will actually be the third time in the past four months that the moon has interacted with this famous star pattern in what is known as an occultation. … Read more
December 2024 will see a rare “black moon,” a term for the second new moon in a calendar month. The second new moon of December will occur at 5:27 p.m. ET (2227 GMT) on Dec. 30, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory, two days after the waning moon passes by Mercury in the predawn sky. … Read more
Mercury will reach its farthest angular distance from the sun at 3 UTC on December 25, 2024 (9 p.m. CST on December 24). Then it’ll be 22 degrees from the sunrise. No matter where you are on Earth, look east before sunrise to see Mercury now. The red star Antares will be nearby. Chart via … Read more
Friday, December 20Now that the evening sky is Moon-free, it’s time to aim for fainter targets, including 12th-magnitude Comet 333P/LINEAR. Located in far northern Cygnus, close to where that constellation’s border meets those of Cepheus and Draco, LINEAR sits some 8.4° northeast of magnitude 3.8 Kappa (κ) Cygni tonight. The comet is roughly halfway along … Read more
If the weather is clear where you live on Tuesday evening (Dec. 17), look low above the east-northeast horizon at around 8:00 p.m. local standard time and you’ll see the waning gibbous moon, 89% illuminated, accompanied by a very bright and colorful star directly below it and two bright stars will above it. The two … Read more
Friday, December 13The bright gibbous Moon passes 4° north of Uranus at 5 A.M. EST. At that time, the Moon sits in Aries the Ram, while Uranus is just over the border in far western Taurus the Bull. The two set together around 5 A.M. local time. You might have better luck spotting the ice … Read more
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunningly sharp view of Jupiter when the planet was near opposition in 2019. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) Friday, December 6 Asteroid 15 Eunomia is making its way through central Auriga this month, passing numerous deep-sky objects along … Read more