Editor’s Note: We are looking up as HMNS Astronomer James Wooten explains the sky happenings for the month of March with a reminder that Daylight Savings Time is upon us. Jupiter is still in the evening sky as March begins. However it appears a little lower in the west at dusk each evening as Venus […]
Venus remains in the evening sky this month. Venus outshines everything except the Sun and the Moon, so it is unmistakably low in the southwest at dusk. Jupiter and Saturn remain well placed for evening observing this fall. Look for Jupiter and Saturn in the south as night falls. Jupiter is brighter than all the stars we […]
Mars continues to fade a little bit each night now that Earth has overtaken it and is pulling away. However, it fades out gradually; Mars remains almost as bright as the stars around it in April 2021. And Mars is high in the west–well placed for observing right as night falls. Jupiter and Saturn are the morning […]
Taurus, the Bull is high in the south. Look for the Pleiades star cluster above reddish Aldebaran. Dazzling Orion, the Hunter takes center stage on winter evenings. Surrounding Orion are the brilliant stars of winter. Orion’s belt points down to Sirius, the Dog Star, which outshines all other stars we ever see at night. The […]
Constellations in the November southern sky are almost entirely devoid of bright stars. They represent beasts and gods related to water, indicating that they are part of the ‘Celestial Sea’. Examples are Aquarius, the Water Bearer and Pisces, the Fish. Even Capricornus, the Goat, has a fish tail because he’s originally Ea, Babylonian god […]
Autumn represents sort of an ‘intermission’ in the sky, with bright summer stars setting at dusk, while bright winter patterns such as Orion have not yet risen. The ‘teapot’ of Sagittarius sets in the southwest early in the evening. The Summer Triangle is high in the west. Meanwhile, the Great Square […]
The Summer Triangle is high overhead at dusk. This consists of the brightest stars in Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila. Scorpius, the Scorpion, is in the south, with the ‘teapot’ of Sagittarius to his left. From the Big Dipper’s handle, ‘arc to Arcturus’ and ‘speed on to Spica’ in the southwest. The Great Square of […]
The Summer Triangle is high overhead at dusk. This consists of the brightest stars in Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila. Scorpius, the Scorpion, is in the south, with the ‘teapot’ of Sagittarius to his left. From the Big Dipper’s handle, ‘arc to Arcturus’ and ‘speed on to Spica’ in the southwest. Saturn is between Scorpius and […]
The Big Dipper is above the North Star, with its handle pointing up. From that handle, you can ‘arc to Arcturus’ and then ‘speed on to Spica’; those stars are in the west at dusk. Leo, the Lion, is also in the west at dusk. Jupiter is to the left of Spica in […]
The Big Dipper is above the North Star, with its handle pointing up. From that handle, you can ‘arc to Arcturus’ and then ‘speed on to Spica’; those stars are in the south at dusk. Arcturus is the fourth brightest star in the night sky, but the brightest one we see from Houston […]
