Today:
Saturn continues to rise a few minutes earlier each evening, starting its trek through the heavens near 10:30 PM tonight, rising in the east-southeast, quickly followed by the waning gibbous Moon to its lower left. They climb higher by midnight for better viewing, and then crest, due south early tomorrow morning near 4 o’clock, almost halfway up from the horizon.
Thursday:
As twilight now falls just a little earlier than the beginning of the month, you’ll find the skies dark enough to catch a view of the bluish-white star Spica, low in the southwest. Spica, translated as a “spike of wheat”, sits on the hips of Virgo, long associated with the harvest. In another 6 weeks, Spica becomes lost in the Sun’s glare, about the time that the harvest season begins in earnest.
Friday:
The North Star, also known as Polaris, remains anchored halfway up from the northern horizon, never moving noticeably, though, technically, it does make a very small circle as the Earth rotates on its axis. The circle is a little more than one degree, or twice the diameter of the Moon.