Two or three times each month I post information about the location of our Moon as it crosses the ecliptic, the Earth’s orbital path around the Sun. These are known as nodes and there is an ascending node and a descending node representing the location where the Moon crosses the ecliptic moving north or south.
The ecliptic is used as the reference for all solar orbiting objects and with regard to the planets each of them is tilted or inclined from the ecliptic. So each planet, like our Moon, has an ascending and descending node.
On Wednesday December 2nd the planet Mars crosses the ecliptic moving north, it’s ascending node.
Click here to learn a little more about the ecliptic. This was a previous post from December 2019, but it still illustrates the ecliptic and the planets respective orbits relative to the ecliptic.
This table shows the inclination of planets relative to the ecliptic as well as the Sun’s equator extended outward.
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for monthly observing information, or here to return to bobs-spaces.
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Tuesday December 1st the 17-day old waning gibbous Moon will be crossing the plane of the ecliptic moving north. This is known as the 
Does our Moon actually go around the Earth as many graphics show? From our perspective on the Earth the Moon appears to circle around the Earth. However, in reality, the Moon orbits the Sun together with the Earth*
Sunday, November 29th the Sun in its apparent eastward motion along the ecliptic, moves out of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion and into the constellation of Ophiuchus the Healer. This is the true or actual position of the Sun as opposed to the pseudoscience of astrology which usually has the astrological Sun one constellation ahead or east from the Astronomical Sun’s position. 
Ophiuchus is the 13th constellation of the zodiac (Astronomical) but does not appear in the astrological zodiac nor in the astrology column found in many newspapers. A constellation of either zodiac is defined the same way, using the ecliptic path. If the ecliptic passes through a constellation boundary then that constellation is a zodiac constellation. In the graphics I use the ecliptic path clearly crosses across the boundary for the constellation Ophiuchus the Healer.
In Ophiuchus’s hands he is holding a long snake, the 2-part constellation of Serpens – Serpens Cauda (tail of the snake) and Serpens Caput (head of the snake). There are many stories about Ophiuchus and the snake including one where this is the origin of the symbol for medicine, the 
If there is a connection with a medical symbol then it should be with the 
This past month, November, the inner planets Mercury and Venus were very visible in the early morning skies before sunrise. Both of the planets were at or near their respective western elongation. Venus was there during August and Mercury reached its western elongation on November 10th.
According to the pseudoscience of astrology the Sun enters the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer on Saturday November 21st. When in fact the actual position of the Sun is still within the boundaries of the constellation of Libra the Scales. 
