Darkness At Noon

Another stunning week this week, the moon is just past noon at the moment setting just after sunset tonight and moving further up the western sky over the course of the week, skirting Orion. It’s just below the Pleiades on the 6^th and is just to the right of Aldebaran, the baleful red eye of the bull in Taurus. And speaking of Orion, we will soon lose the hunter as it sinks further into the sun, a sure sigh that that summer’s on the way, his belt is horizontal now.  There are three stars in the belt Alnitak is approximately 800 light years away from Earth and is 100,000 times more luminous than the Sun,  Alnilam is is 375,000 times more luminous than the Sun and is 90,000 times more luminous than the Sun. So they’re all pretty bright.

Orion is very useful as an aid to locating other stars. By extending the line of the Belt south-eastward, Sirius can be found; north-westward, there’s Aldebaran. A line eastward across the two shoulders indicates the direction of Procyon; and a line from Rigel through Betelgeuse points to the twins Castor and Pollux.

And now for the planets, well Saturn anyway, which was at opposition on Sunday; which means that the earth was directly in line with Saturn and the Sun. It glows low in the east-southeast as twilight fades, rises higher in the southeast during evening, and shines highest in the south after midnight. During the evening, look for twinkly Spica 11° below it and brighter Arcturus nearly 30° to its left.

As for the other planets you may get a glimpse of Venus pre dawn in the South East.

But not Mercury which is fading fast and disappearing down into the sunset as it nears inferior conjunction.

Or Mars which remains out of sight behind the glare of the Sun for a while yet, and Jupiter is out of sight in conjunction with the Sun.

Now you may have noticed that the Black Shadow, aka Barbara Simpson, has been quiet of late, well after much clandestine investigation and at no small personal risk I have discovered that she raised a considerable sum smuggling endangered species over the course of the last 6 months and has now invested in am immensely powerful gamma ray space laser, which will be able to take out London, Washington and Ulan Bator at the push of button unless her as yet unspecified demands are met. It’s Sod’s law isn’t it just when you really need James Bond, MGM pulls the plug.

And that was your night sky for the week wending on the 57^th anniversary of the the most boring day since 1900 according to the True Knowledge Answer Engine.