This week's celestial highlights include Venus shining brightly after sunset, a Last-Quarter Moon leading to moonless nights, and the chance to spot Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius, alongside the moon.
Each Monday, I pick out North America’s celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also applies to northern hemisphere mid-northern latitudes). To the moon rising alongside the “rival of Mars,” here’s everything you need to know about stargazing and astronomy this week: Venus will be the brightest it gets above the western horizon after sunset. Venus has been shrinking to a crescent as it gets closer to Earth, and today, just 23% of it is lit.
Despite that—and because of both its closeness and its reflective cloud cover—it will today shine at a brilliant magnitude of -4.6. Today, we will see a Last-Quarter (or Third-Quarter) Moon, which will appear half-illuminated and rise around midnight. The moon’s rising and setting times shift later by about 50 minutes each night, which means this weekend will feature moonless nights. We're about to enter a fine period for stargazing. Look to the southeast horizon from about 3:00 a.m. local time through dawn to see a waning gibbous moon appearing to be about half a degree from Antares, the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. Antares will be above the moon. If you have a keen eye, look for the hypergiant star Paikauhale below the moon. Both stars are in Scorpius. Antares is a red supergiant star 12 times the sun's mass, one of the biggest stars we know of. Distinctly orangey-red to the observer (primarily through binoculars) and known as the “rival of Mars” because of its ruddy color and because Mars passes it closely every 26 months. If you put it in the solar system, it would reach almost as far as where Jupiter orbits
VENUS MOON ANTA RES SCORPIUS Astronomy
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