In the Sky This Month

Two planets flank the Moon at dawn tomorrow. Brilliant Venus, the Morning Star, stands to the lower left of the Moon. The fainter planet Saturn perches a little farther to the upper right of the Moon.

The planet Saturn appears quite close to the Moon at dawn tomorrow. It looks like a bright star to the lower left of the Moon. The much-brighter planet Venus stands farther to the lower left.

Late spring is a good time to look for the constellation Centaurus, the mythological half-man, half-horse. The centaur’s head and shoulders stand due south, quite low above the horizon, a couple of hours after sunset.

For skywatchers in the southern half of the country, Omega Centauri rolls low across the south during the night. It looks like a fuzzy star, but it’s actually a globular cluster-a family of hundreds of thousands of ancient stars packed into a tight ball.

Hercules stands well up in the east and northeast as night falls. The constellation’s brightest star represents the entire strongman. Its name, Kornephoros, comes from a Greek word that means “the club bearer,” which is Hercules himself.

A pretty semicircle of stars crowns the sky on spring and summer nights: Corona Borealis, the northern crown. It is in the east as night falls now, and passes high overhead a few hours later. In a couple of months, it will be overhead at nightfall.

One of the most important stars in the ancient world was Arcturus, in Boštes, the herdsman. The Egyptians, Greeks, and others spun legends around this bright yellow-orange giant. Arcturus stands high in the eastern sky this evening.

The star cluster NGC 2281 is in Auriga the charioteer, in the west-northwest at nightfall. The “twins” of Gemini stand to its upper left, with the brilliant star Capella farther to its lower right. Under clear, dark skies, the cluster is visible to the unaided eye.

Corvus, the crow, is due south at nightfall, to the lower right of the bright star Spica, the leading light of Virgo. Four stars form an angled box that looks like a sail.

Antares, the star that represents the heart of the scorpion, stands a whisker from the Moon as they climb into view this evening. It consists of two stars, the brightest of which is a supergiant that is destined to explode as a supernova.