John Mosley was Program Supervisor of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles for 27 years and is the author of “Stargazing for Beginners” and “Stargazing with Binoculars and Telescopes”. He and his wife live in St. George where he continues to stargaze from his retirement home while serving on the advisory committee for Stellar Vista Observatory.
Three of the four bright planets are easy to spot in the evening sky, and in order of appearance they’re Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. Mars is behind the sun and cannot be seen. Venus appears first because it’s the brightest, and in fact it’s so bright you can see it during the daytime with your […]
Three bright planets are out tonight and two of them are brighter than any star, so it’s a good time to be planet-watching. Brightest and first to appear is Venus, poetically called the “Evening Star”. Venus is a quarter of the way up the southwestern sky at the moment of sunset, and you can spot […]
Beginning with planets, Venus, being the brightest, is the first to appear. Look for it low in the west for the hour or so after sunset. It’s so bright you can see it long before the sky is fully dark if you know where to look, and it’s even easier if you use binoculars. Venus […]
Autumn begins on Wednesday, September 22nd, precisely at 1:20 p.m. MDT. That’s the moment when the sun, in it’s apparent annual motion around the sky (the reflection of the earth’s motion around the sun) crosses the sky’s celestial equator. The celestial equator is the projection of the earth’s equator into space; during the summer the […]
Beginning with planets, the first to appear as darkness falls is Venus, in the southwest. At the moment of sunset it’s 18° above the horizon, as seen from Kanab, and you can spot it with binoculars. An hour later it’s only 7° high and you may need to peer between buildings or trees to see […]
Venus and Mercury shine low in the west after sunset. Brilliant Venus is obvious but Mercury is so near the horizon and sets in twilight that you’ll have a tough time spotting it. The very thin crescent moon, only three days past new and only 12% illuminated by the sun, is just 3° from Venus […]
Venus and Mercury both appear in the west shortly after sunset. Venus is brilliant and easy to see for about 90 minutes after sunset, but this is a poor evening appearance of Mercury and you’ll have trouble spotting it. The angle that the plane of the solar system and the path of the planets – […]
The first planet that appears tonight is brilliant Venus. Venus sits low in the west as the sky is growing dark and it sets about 90 minutes after the sun. Jupiter and Saturn are rising but still low in the southeast as Venus is setting in the west and you can see both Jupiter and […]
You can see all three planets that are visible tonight at the same time around 9 p.m. Then Venus is about to set in the west while Jupiter and Saturn have recently risen in the southeast. Venus is by far the brightest and it becomes visible in early evening twilight – or earlier if you […]
This week is the peak of the famous Perseid Meteor Shower and this Sky Report is devoted to it. The planets are pretty much where they were last week. Meteors are quick flashes of light that last for only seconds. The brightest leave smoke trails that can linger for minutes or longer. They fall at […]
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