yesterday<\/a>: Titan is now far (nearly 2\u2019) to the planet\u2019s northwest, while Rhea is quite far to the east. Around 2 A.M. EDT, Tethys is just north of the rings also to the east of the planet, and Dione is closing in from the northeast.\u00a0<\/p>\nOver the next few hours, Dione will pass north of Saturn but won\u2019t transit, leaving a sliver of dark space between the world\u2019s limb and the moon. However, its tiny shadow will transit \u2014 if you\u2019re an experienced planetary imager, particularly with video capture, this is for you. (If not, you\u2019re not likely to see the shadow by eye.) The shadow leads the moon, appearing at the northeastern limb just after 1:30 A.M. EDT and taking two hours to complete its transit. It disappears from the northwestern limb just as Dione is roughly due north of Saturn\u2019s pole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Imagers, stay alert \u2014 next up is Tethys\u2019 shadow, which appears at the eastern limb just above the rings around 4 A.M. EDT. Tethys itself then begins a transit around 4 A.M. CDT (note the time zone change). Again, only imagers will likely see this event, as the small moon will be hard to make out against the bright cloud tops. Tethys\u2019 shadow transit ends around 4:30 A.M. MDT (again, note the time zone change), while Tethys slips away from the disk about 30 minutes later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunrise: 5:50 A.M.
Sunset: 8:23 P.M.
Moonrise: 3:00 P.M.
Moonset: 12:09 A.M.
Moon Phase:\u00a0Waxing gibbous (66%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n
The planet Mercury comes to a standstill tomorrow. Located in the constellation Gemini, the tiny world is now rising before the Sun, visible for a short time in the east before sunrise. However, it\u2019s quite faint \u2014 magnitude 2.2 \u2014 and is best seen with binoculars or a telescope, to the far lower left of Betelgeuse in Orion, which itself stands left of the three star asterism Orion\u2019s Belt. High above, magnitude 1.3 Mars is brighter and easier to spot, to the left of Taurus\u2019 brightest star, Aldebaran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\t\tLook east before sunrise on the 23rd to see if you can spot tiny Mercury, not far above the horizon some 40 minutes before dawn breaks. Your best bet may be to look for the planet using binoculars, but make sure to put them away at least several minutes before sunrise from your location. Credit: Stellarium<\/p>\n
Mercury is just 2\u00b0 above the horizon around 5:10 A.M. local daylight time, although it\u2019s rising. However, the sky is also brightening, so the earlier you can catch it, the better. A clear, flat horizon with no trees or buildings is best. Try using some optical aid to spot it, once you know you\u2019re in the right area (or simply use the go-to function on your scope if you have it). Through a telescope, Mercury is just 12% lit, which is why it\u2019s so faint despite its diameter of 10\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now that Mercury has paused its motion in our sky, it will stop moving westward, or retrograde, and begin moving eastward, or prograde. In the coming weeks, it will head for the eastern border of Gemini and cross into Cancer around midday on August 8.<\/p>\n
Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The 10th-magnitude moon Dione skims above Saturn\u2019s north pole early this morning, accompanied by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-562256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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