Today:
At 11 o’clock this evening, climbing into the east and northeast, a preview of coming summer attractions has returned to the skies. Bright, almost half way up in the skies, is Vega, while just rising in the east-northeast shines Altair. The third in this trio of stars, Deneb, is one quarter of the way above the northeast horizon.
Wednesday:
The nearly-Full Moon appears low in the southeast as the Sun sets, near its lowest position in the skies. Through the evening, it rides low over the southern horizon, joined about an hour later by the red star Antares, the “heart” the Scorpion, remaining even lower than the Moon as they slide past due south after midnight. The Moon is extremely close to Antares Thursday night.
Thursday:
With darkness settling in by 9 o’clock or so, the Full “Flower” Moon rises in extremely close proximity to the bright red star Antares. For portions of the southeastern US and through the Caribbean and northeast South America, the Moon actually covers, or occults the star. For us, this is the closest the Moon and Antares appear for the next 20 years. Binoculars will give you a better view.