Tomorrow morning – Sunday, March 2, 2008 – just before the sun rises – look in the southeast to see the moon and planet Jupiter. These two worlds appear in front of, or near, The Teapot asterism in Sagittarius, a noticeable pattern on the sky’s dome for those who have a dark sky. The moon is in a waning crescent phase and appears within The Teapot. Jupiter appears now right next to the star Nunki the star in the handle of The Teapot asterism. An asterism, by the way, is not a constellation. An asterism is a noticeable pattern on the sky’s dome, sometimes within a constellation, sometimes made of stars belonging to separate constellations. The Teapot asterism lies entirely within the constellation Sagittarius the Archer. If you have dark skies, you’ll see that the moon lies in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy Sunday morning. This part of the Milky Way is often called the “summer” Milky Way by us in the northern hemisphere, because it’s the part of the galaxy we see on summer evenings. The Milky Way is an awesome sight in a dark sky! If you have a clear horizon toward the east, you might also spot two other planets this weekend – Mercury and Venus – near the horizon as it gets closer to dawn. The moon will be moving past Jupiter – then Venus and Mercury – over the next few mornings.
Here is the horozon about an hour later, you can see that Venus and Mercury are cresting the horizon...
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Topic: Moon near Jupiter before dawn March 2 (Read 503 times)
