As the Moon circles toward its last-quarter phase, where it will cross our orbit in front of us, it shows us our view ahead in our own orbit.
The Moon again passes the red giant star Antares –
See the end note about enlarging illustrations. Arrows through the moving bodies show their movement (against the starry background) from 2 days earlier to 2 days later. The Moon is exaggerated 4 times in size.
The passage is again close enough that the Moon occults the star, as shown on page 105 of Astronomical Calendar 2024.
But this happens about 10 hours later than the moment shown in our scene, after the Moon and the Scorpion constellation have sunk below America’s western horizon.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.
One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or you can click ‘Refresh’ to get the latest version.
Looking forward to when our moon occults Sol in 11 days. Seems like fronts move through every 5 days in springtime, so the sky should be clear in 11 days since it’s supposed to be sunny in Cleveland tomorrow.