Turn your eyes to the western sky at sunset on Feb. 19 to catch a delicate sight, as the razor-thin form of the two-day-old crescent moon sidles up to the gas giant Saturn in the evening sky.<\/p>\n
The 10%-lit waxing crescent moon will be easy to miss as it hangs low on the western horizon at sundown, with Saturn<\/a> appearing as a bright “evening star<\/a>” less than 5 degrees \u2014 roughly the width of your three middle fingers held at arm’s length \u2014 to the lower left of Earth<\/a>‘s natural satellite.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You may notice a subtle glow infusing the shadowed expanse of the lunar disk as the sun sets further below the horizon. What you’re seeing is a phenomenon known as “Earthshine”, or the “Da Vinci Glow”, wherein light reflects off of Earth’s surface and onto the lunar disk during the days around the new moon<\/a> phase.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Try to find a clear view of the western horizon on Feb. 19 and look to the lower right of Saturn to spot Mercury<\/a>‘s steady light hugging the horizon. If you’re incredibly lucky, you may also catch a glimpse of Venus<\/a>, even lower still, before it slips swiftly out of sight, bathed in the glare of the setting sun.<\/p>\n Neptune<\/a> will also be present \u2014 though far too dim to spot with the naked eye \u2014 between the moon<\/a> and Saturn, less than 2 degrees to the right of the gas giant<\/a>. A telescope with an aperture of at least 8 inches will be needed to spot the blue dot that represents its far-flung disk.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today’s best Celestron NexStar 8SE deals<\/p>\n Both Saturn and the crescent moon will follow the sun below the horizon less than three hours after sunset for skywatchers in the U.S. Remember, the exact times that solar system bodies rise and set varies based on your location. Check out a trusted website like Time and Date<\/a> for timings specific to your locale.<\/p>\n Stargazers hoping to get a closer look at the planets of the solar system<\/a> should check out our picks of the best telescopes<\/a> available in 2026, while photographers should peruse our selection of the best cameras and lenses.<\/p>\n Editor’s Note: If you capture an image of the moon with Saturn and want to share it with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turn your eyes to the western sky at sunset on Feb. 19 to catch a delicate sight, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-292634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}