Over the next several days (evenings) both inner planets, Mercury and Venus, are moving along their respective orbits approaching each planet’s eastern elongation. From the animated graphic you can see that the stars in the background, like the two ‘Twin Stars’ Pollux and Castor, are also moving but toward the western horizon. This is a regular motion of the stars caused by the Earth’s own orbit, revolution, around the Sun. As the Earth revolves the stars appear to move westward – a real motion not to be confused with the apparent motion of stars toward the west as the Earth rotates.
On the evening of June 25th Mercury will pass within about 5-6o from the star Pollux.
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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Northern hemisphere spring comes to an end and its summer begins on Thursday day June 21st at 10:08 UT (5:08 am CDT) when the Sun ‘reaches’ the celestial coordinates of 23.5o north declination and 6 hours right ascension. With respect to the Earth’s surface the Sun is described as over the Tropic of Cancer, 23.5o, north latitude of the Earth’s equator. At this same time according to 
Saturday June 16th the waxing crescent 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 
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*
