In the Sky This Month

The planet Venus appears near the Moon in tomorrow’s dawn sky. It is the brilliant Morning Star, outshining everything else in the night sky other than the Moon, so you can’t miss it.

California is the land of the stars. It’s also in the stars as the California Nebula, a cloud of gas and dust that looks like the outline of the state. It is more than 1,000 light-years away, in Perseus.

Perseus climbs the eastern sky on autumn evenings. It consists of two ribbons of stars that join at Mirfak, its leading light. Mirfak is much larger and heavier than the Sun, and several thousand times brighter, so it’s visible across more than 500 light-years.

Regulus, the bright star that marks the heart of the lion, will appear close below the Moon at dawn tomorrow. The distance between them will narrow as you move westward. They will be especially close as seen from Alaska or Hawaii.

Big constellations with big stories populate the late-evening eastern sky. About 11 p.m., look for Taurus, the bull; Cetus, the sea monster, and Eridanus, the river. They all cover large regions of the sky and include several fairly bright stars.

Deneb, the brightest star of Cygnus, stands high overhead as night falls. It really is a brilliant star, shining tens of thousands of times brighter than the Sun. It’s dimmed, however, by its distance, which is estimated at more than 2,600 light-years.

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, looks like a brilliant star below the Moon at dawn tomorrow. The twin stars of Gemini are closer to the left and lower left of the Moon. Pollux is the brighter of the two.

The two brightest stars of Aquarius are lucky. The brighter one is Sadalsuud. Its name means “luckiest of the lucky.” The other is Sadalmelik, “luck of the king.” Aquarius is in the southeast at nightfall. The “lucky” stars are parallel to the horizon, with Sadalmelik on the left.

Aldebaran, the bright eye of Taurus, accompanies the Moon tonight. The star is more than one billion years older than the Sun. It is well into its old age, so it has puffed up to about 40 times the Sun’s diameter, making it hundreds of times brighter than the Sun.

The Moon barrels through the Pleiades star cluster tonight. It will pass directly in front of it, briefly blocking most of its stars from view. The cluster represents the shoulder of Taurus, the bull.