In the Sky This Month

Look for the planet Saturn near the crescent Moon early this evening. It looks like a bright star to the left of the Moon as twilight fades away. They set about three hours after the Sun.

The star Pherkad, which forms the lower outer corner of the Little Dipper’s bowl, is much bigger, brighter, and heavier than the Sun. Over a period of a few hours, though, its brightness varies by a few percent, and astronomers aren’t sure why.

The Little Dipper stands high above the Big Dipper, which is low in the northwest at nightfall. The Little Dipper’s bowl hangs upside down, like it’s pouring its water into the other dipper.

The Orionid meteor shower should be at its best late tonight, and there will be no Moon in the sky then to spoil the show. The shower is known as the Orionids because its meteors “rain” from Orion, although they can streak across any part of the sky.

The new Moon will accompany the Sun as it climbs across the sky today. We can’t see the Moon because it is immersed in the Sun’s glare. The exact moment of new Moon is 2:12 p.m. CDT. The Moon will return to view after sunset tomorrow or Saturday.

The planet Uranus is putting in its best appearance of the year this week. It rises at sunset and remains in the sky all night. It’s also closest to us for the year. It’s still so faint, though, that you need binoculars to find it.

The beautiful “morning star” shines above the crescent Moon at dawn tomorrow. It’s not a star at all, though. Instead, it’s Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor. It shines so brightly in part because its surface is completely covered by clouds.

The planet Mars is in good view at dawn tomorrow. It stands to the right of the crescent Moon, and looks like a moderately bright star. The much brighter planet Venus stands below them.

The Andromeda galaxy is in good view right now. Tonight, it’s in the east-northeast as darkness falls, and overhead later on. It looks like a faint, fuzzy star. Small telescopes reveal its true nature: a family of hundreds of billions of stars.

Regulus will wink out of sight early tomorrow across most of the U.S. The star will be covered by the crescent Moon, an event known as an occultation. It’s one of a series of occultations that began last December and will continue through April.