If you’re out in the mornings early in the week use the Moon to help you find a few planets. Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn & the Moon will hang low in the east before sunrise on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday.
They’ll be just left of the Moon on Tuesday morning but you’ll need a clear view of the horizon to see the show.
The Moon will darken through the week, more on that in a second. Use the darker sky to help you find something known as the zodiacal light. It’s a pyramid-shaped glow that’s in the western sky a little more than an hour after sunset.
Sunlight reflected off dust particles along the ecliptic, or the plane the Earth is on as it orbits the Sun, causes the phenomenon. It has a similar appearance of lights from a far-off city on the distant horizon.
We’re getting ready to say “goodbye” to an old friend in the night sky soon & you may have noticed. Orion, or the hunter, is getting lower & lower in the evening sky.
Right now it’s pretty low at sunset & soon it’ll be lost in the Sun’s glare until it returns later in the year.
I mentioned earlier that the Moon is waning this week. The New Moon will officially arrive at 5:21 a.m. on Saturday morning. That means that when we do have some clearing you’ll be able to see that many more stars.
Happy hunting!