Monthly Night Sky information provided by Chris Vaughan (@Astrogeoguy) at Starry Night Education (@StarryNightEdu).
Only the brightest stars are visible to our unaided eyes on moonlight-flooded nights. Early on Thursday evening, November 21, the very bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra the Harp will be descending the western sky. At magnitude 0.0, it’s the 5th brightest star in the entire sky (not counting our sun). The star […]
The northeastern sky on November evenings hosts the bright constellations of Perseus and W-shaped Cassiopeia, with the very bright star Capella positioned well below them. The sky between Perseus and Cassiopeia hosts the Double Cluster, a pair of bright open star clusters that together cover a finger’s width of the sky. They make a spectacular […]
For observers located in a zone covering most of the eastern continental USA and Canada, the old, waning crescent moon will pass in front of (or occult) Virgo’s brightest star, Spica shortly after it has cleared the trees in the east on Wednesday morning, November 27 before sunrise. Use an app like Starry Night to […]
The moon will reach its new phase on Sunday, December 1 at 1:21 a.m. EST or 06:21 GMT, which converts to 10:21 p.m. PST on Saturday. At that time our natural satellite will be located within Scorpius and 4.5 degrees south of the sun. While it’s new, the moon is travelling between Earth and the […]
As December begins, the bright reddish planet Mars will be shining just above (or celestial north of) the large open star cluster in Cancer known as the Beehive, Praesepe, and Messier 44. Mars and the stellar “bees”, which will be scattered across an area more than twice the size of a full moon, will fit […]