Tuesday July 10th in the hour or so before sunrise local time the very thin 26.5-day old waning crescent Moon will be within about 1o (width of 2 full Moons) from the reddish star Aldebaran in the open star cluster the Hyades. The Hyades are a v-shaped group of stars marking the face of Taurus the Bull. Reddish-colored Aldebaran represents an angry eye of the Bull.
This conjunction is close enough so that a combination of a thin waning crescent Moon and the bright Aldebaran should make for a take a look with binoculars or the ‘naked-eye’.
For those keeping track of Jupiter should be relieved to read that Jupiter’s retrograde motion has ended, and at least for the foreseeable future Jupiter has agreed to stick with the ‘program’ and resume it’s direct motion – eastward.
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This evening despite the low temperature the sky was clear, for a change, and after checking to see if there were any ISS flyovers and finding one about an hour after sunset I made my plans. This particular flyover would start at 6:12 pm CST as the ISS appeared above the northwestern horizon. It’s 6-minute path was toward the southeast and at its maximum altitude it would be around 45 degrees. From my Astronomy software I noted that its path would take the ISS past the North Star and then past Capella and the 3 ‘Kid’ stars in Auriga. From there it would angle down toward the southeastern horizon. Before fading from view the ISS passed near the reddish star Aldebaran in the v-shaped open star cluster the Hyades.
