On Monday August 17th our Moon will be crossing the plane of the ecliptic moving north relative to the ecliptic. This is known as the ascending node, one of two intersections the Moon’s orbital path has with the ecliptic. The ecliptic is actually the Earth’s orbit and the Moon’s orbit is inclined about 6o from the ecliptic. So there are two node intersections, the ascending and descending nodes.
On Monday evening the 3.5 day young waxing crescent Moon will be setting about 1-2 hours after the Sun sets. The planet Mercury, ‘down to the right’ may be visible as well as the blue-white star Spica ‘up to the left’.
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for more observing information for this month.
