See January’s shining Full Wolf Moon go dark, the stars appear in a nearly moonless sky and the brilliant orb return to full light, outshining all but the brightest distant suns.
This week December’s Geminid shower is predicted to peak Thursday the 13th after 10 p.m. into Friday the 14th before dawn, with 2 a.m. as optimum observing.
By Friday, the 29th, a half moon, last quarter, rises close to midnight, accompanying springtime’s quintessential all-night constellation, Leo the Lion, visible now during the hours after midnight.
Where the glistening bay reached the sea, a rosy red rounded radiance colored the skyline, a concentrated shape of color above the east-southeast horizon.
The Orionid meteor shower, predicted to peak before dawn on Sunday the 21st, is active through November 7. At peak, in a dark location under a moonless sky, a maximum of 15 to 20 shooting stars per hour are predicted.
At the first sight of the clearing, I was wonderstruck by an aerial display of countless blinking golden lights and dipping, curving, white gold lines streaking all over the meadow from the ground up to the treetops.
Most of us are never prompted to think about the dynamic nature of the world, a world in which the planets move in their orbits in space at varying speeds and that the relationship between the planets changes.
Namesake of the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and the third brightest object in the night sky, next to Venus and the moon.
Each year, the Passover holiday begins on the evening after the first full moon that follows the spring equinox and Easter begins on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the Equinox.
Like preserving natural landscapes for biodiversity, preserving access to clear skies that allow human contact with the cosmos is crucial to quality of life.
For those of us who, two weeks ago, witnessed the total solar eclipse in faraway locations and those of us who observed the partial eclipse locally, this full moon is especially charged.
