Quarter curves

What is happening in the evening sky?

See the end note about enlarging illustrations. The Moon is exaggerated 4 times in size.

Mercury and Venus are too low, near the Sun; the other planets are out on the western or morning side. So the provider of luminous activity is the emerging Moon.

Having passed south of Pollux on June 9 and north of the beautiful star cluster called Praesepe (“the manger”) or the Beehive, on June 10, the Moon will be north of Regulus on June 12, and on the 13th arrives near the point we mark as “antapex of Earth’s way”: the direction back along our orbit. For, at First Quarter phase, it is crossing over our orbit behind us.

There is a pleasure in following the celestial curves, equator, ecliptic, Moon’s path, as they sweep toward almost-convergence. Easy to see them in the picture, not so easy in the sky, but they are pricked out by lights, Pollux, Regulus, Spica, the Beehive if the sky is clear enough, and the Moon herself as she not only circles around us but turns toward us.

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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.

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.