Today:
Guess who’s rising before midnight? The Winter champion Orion lifts into the east and southeast for night owls, tracking to due south near 4 o’clock tomorrow morning, and then heads into the southwest just as twilight begins, near 6 o’clock.
Monday:
Cresting due south this evening at 9:15 PM, Saturn is easy to locate, one third of the way up. Then, turn your gaze lower, also due south, where a rather bright, but rarely noticed star makes its best evening appearance of the year. Known to astronomers as Fomalhaut, the name originates from Arabic for the “mouth of the fish”, part of the constellation, the Southern Fish.
Tuesday:
Looking in the east as midnight approaches, the skies host two trios of vertically-aligned stars. To the right or south of east, a familiar trio marks the belt of Orion, rising a little earlier each evening. Meanwhile a temporary trio shines to the left of east, thanks to the pair of stars we call the Twins of Gemini, joined by the slowly brightening red planet Mars on a line directly below them. They reach high in the south by dawn tomorrow.