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- Orion, the Hunter, may be the most amazing constellation in the sky. And Betelgeuse, the star marking Orion’s left shoulder, is a red supergiant that’s ripe to explode as a supernova. (en)
- The waxing Moon traverses the sky this week. If you want a great project, track its appearance each night as it changes from 20% to 85% lit. Remarkably, we always see the same side of the Moon. (en)
- The Moon forms a spectacular pair with Jupiter high in the southeast. They’re in the constellation Taurus the Bull, which was the first constellation of the zodiac at the dawn of history. (en)
- The constellations Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Perseus are linked in Greek mythology by a wonderful story. (en)
- Summer officially begins on Wednesday this week. In addition to having the longest days, this time of year has the most luxurious sunrises, sunsets, and twilights. (en)
- Saturn is the second-biggest planet in our solar system, big enough to fit 800 Earths inside. Its most prominent feature is its magnificent ring system, made of countless chunks of ice. (en)
- The Moon, our closest neighbor in space, is amazing to the unaided eye and binoculars. Its surface reveals a lot about Earth’s history, too. (en)
- Mars, Saturn, and Spica form a triangle low in the southwest. And the Perseid meteor shower will be at its best late on Saturday night. (en)
- Venus and Jupiter are paired spectacularly in the western sky. Meanwhile, the twin stars Castor and Pollux form a less glamorous but much longer lived pair high in the south. (en)
- A beautifully thin crescent Moon floats upper right of Mercury on Monday. This is a great week to spot Mercury, something few people have knowingly done. (en)
- The Big Dipper, the sky’s best-known star pattern, is now high in the northeast. Find out how you can use it to tell the directions and the time of night. (en)
- Cassiopeia and Perseus are the prime constellations of the autumn Milky Way. And they’re home to some of the sky’s finest star clusters. (en)
- Weather permitting, North Americans can enjoy a little-known but unusually strong meteor shower before dawn on Wednesday morning. (en)
- Vega and Altair, the brightest stars of the Summer Triangle, are linked in legends worldwide. And their names tell a fascinating story. (en)
- The Geminid meteor shower will be strongest from Thursday evening through Friday morning, though more meteors than usual will fall all week. Conditions are perfect this year, with no Moon to blind you to the faintest meteors. (en)
- The planets Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury form an amazingly tight triangle by the end of this week. This is the closest conjunction of three bright planets until January 2021. (en)
- The Moon pairs with Mars early on Monday morning, and it’s spectacularly close to Venus at dusk on the following Sunday. In between, Venus passes a finger’s width above the bright star Spica. (en)
- Jupiter, the king of the planets, passes extraordinarily near the star Wasat in the sky. Although they appear close together, they’re actually totally different kinds of objects at wildly different distances from Earth. (en)
- Sirius, the night sky’s brightest star, is on great display during January evenings. (en)
- This is the best week in 2013 to view Mercury, the elusive innermost planet. And find out how the quasar 3C 273 was first discovered. (en)
- If we’re lucky, Comet PANSTARRS will shine low in the west shortly after sunset this week. But comets are notoriously unpredictable, so we won’t know for sure until the day arrives. (en)
- Learn how Perseus rescued Andromeda, and find out how and why Queen Cassiopeia is doomed to rotate forever in the sky. (en)
- Look to the right of Cassiopeia for a formation that I call the Really Big Dipper. It’s composed of the three brightest stars of Andromeda together with the Great Square of Pegasus. (en)
- Magnificent Scorpius is near its highest at nightfall. This is one of the few constellations that really resembles its name. Antares, its chief star, is strikingly bright and red. (en)
- This week boasts one of the year’s best meteor showers — though the nearly full Moon will interfere with viewing them. And we’ll look at a constellation that flies upside-down in the sky. (en)
- Vega, Altair, and Deneb, the three bright high-flying stars of summer, are now well up in the east. Together, they form a huge shape called the Summer Triangle. (en)
- The huge intertwined constellations Ophiuchus and Serpens fill much of the southeastern sky. Ophiuchus is sometimes called the thirteenth constellation of the zodiac. (en)
- The planet Uranus is extraordinarily close to a similarly bright star. Uranus was discovered in 1781 by an amateur astronomer named William Herschel. (en)
- Orion is center stage in the south as the sky grows dark. This constellation contains 7 of the sky’s 100 brightest stars. And most of Orion’s main stars are physically related. (en)
- The waxing crescent Moon passes close to three planets this week: Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. All of them travel along a path in the sky called the zodiac. (en)
- A splendid vista of bright stars and one dazzling planet greets stargazers on the stroke of the New Year. And two remarkable stars that vary in brightness are high in the northwest. (en)
- The Milky Way band is one of nature’s most magnificent sights. But most Americans are unable to see it because of the creeping blight of light pollution. (en)
- You can view the change of seasons in the evening sky. The signature constellations of summer are setting in the west, while bright Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andromeda, and Pegasus rise in the northeast. (en)
- As the sky grows dark in the evening, the stars of the Summer Triangle are rising in the east: Vega in the constellation Lyra, Altair in Aquila, and Deneb in Cygnus the Swan. (en)
- Spring starts this week on Monday night, a date called the Vernal Equinox. For the next six months, days will be longer than nights in the Northern Hemisphere. (en)
- The constellations Perseus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda are linked together in the sky, and in Greek mythology. (en)
- Jupiter’s four biggest moons are whole worlds in their own right. They include the most active volcanoes known and a suspected habitat for life. (en)
- The small but shapely constellation Lyra is chock-full of celestial wonders. In Greek mythology this Lyre belonged to the great musician Orpheus. (en)
- The Perseus constellation group fills the northeastern sky. The W of Queen Cassiopeia is most striking. Her son-in-law Perseus below is home to one of the sky’s best but least-known star clusters. (en)
- Dazzling Jupiter blazes near the sky’s two most spectacular star clusters — the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, and the Hyades, the closest rich star cluster to Earth. (en)
- The constellation Gemini, the Twins, flies almost overhead in late February and early March. Its brightest stars are Castor and Pollux, named after the famous twins of Greek and Roman mythology. (en)
- Mars threads the narrow gap between Saturn and Spica. And later in the evening we can look deep into the heart of the Sagittarius Milky Way. (en)
- This week the Moon puts on the best sky show of the year for stargazers in the western U.S. — a total lunar eclipse. And we’ll look at Jupiter, the king of the planets. (en)
- This week Eros, the grandaddy of all near-Earth asteroids, is making its closest approach to Earth since 1975, just 16.6 million miles away. That make it our second-closest neighbor after the Moon. (en)
- The faint constellation Coma Berenices hosts one of the closest star clusters in the sky. It has a fascinating history and is a splendid sight through binoculars. (en)
- The Andromeda Galaxy is on fine display these evenings. It’s the most distant object you’re likely to see without binoculars or a telescope, but it’s right next door in cosmic terms. (en)
- The ancient constellations of the Great Sea fill the southern sky, from Cetus the Sea Monster to strange Capricornus the Sea Goat, whose origin is lost in the mists of time. (en)
- A beautifully thin crescent Moon forms a triangle with Mercury and Venus after sunset on Monday. Then Venus appears a little higher each evening and Mercury a little lower. (en)
- This is a dramatic week for planet watchers. In the east, Mars is at its brightest and closest to Earth for 2012. On the opposite side of the sky, Venus and Jupiter form a spectacular pair. (en)
- The elegant but little-known constellation Draco the Dragon lies coiled around the Little Dipper, with its head high in the sky. (en)
- Mars approaches Saturn and Spica dramatically this week at dusk. And the Day Star, our own Sun, is a never-ending source of astronomical wonder. (en)
- Spring begins this week on Wednesday morning. This is the day when the Sun rises due East and sets due West all over the world. (en)
- Summer evenings are when the Milky Way’s brightest part is visible. Unfortunately, the Milky Way is easily overwhelmed by poorly designed artificial lights. (en)
- Dazzling Venus creeps through Scorpius, passing a short distance above the strikingly red star Antares. And in the predawn sky, Mars passes slightly farther from Regulus, the brightest star of Leo. (en)
- The waxing crescent Moon appears higher in the west each evening this week. And the planet Venus is also now a crescent, a phenomenon of great historical importance. (en)
- Stargazers throughout the contiguous U.S. can see parts of the huge, ancient constellation Centaurus poking above the southern horizon. From Hawaii or southern Florida this constellation is splendid indeed. (en)
- Look just below Orion’s Belt for his Sword. It’s centered on the Great Orion Nebula, which is currently giving birth to hot young stars at a furious rate. (en)
- Deneb, the faintest star of the Summer Triangle, belongs to the magnificent constellation Cygnus, the Swan, which flies along the Milky Way. Cygnus’s brightest stars form the splendid Northern Cross. (en)
- The Big Dipper, the best-known star pattern in the sky is now high in the northeast in the evening. It’s just part of the much larger constellation Ursa Major. (en)
- Auriga the Charioteer is nearly overhead in the evening sky. Its prominent pentagon includes dazzling Capella, meaning She Goat, the sixth brightest star in the night sky. (en)
- The waxing Moon passes Mars, Spica, and Saturn this week. Saturn possesses an extraordinary retinue of moons, including the amazingly Earth-like moon Titan. (en)
- Venus, Mars, and Saturn are all paired with bright stars this week. Saturn is in Virgo, the great constellation of spring, and the site of a remarkable galaxy cluster. (en)
- Winter starts on Friday, and coincidentally the ancient Mayan calendar flips over to a new "baktun." Contrary to the doomsayers, nothing unusual will happen. But some astronomical phenomena are genuinely dangerous. (en)
- Days are long and nights are short during the first full week of summer. Learn how summer is defined in astronomical terms, and why it matters to all life on Earth. (en)
- Between and below Cygnus the Dolphin and Aquila the Eagle lie two tiny but very attractive constellations: Delphinus the Dolphin and Sagitta the Arrow. (en)
- Vega, the brightest star of the Summer Triangle, is almost overhead now. Together with five fainter stars, Vega forms the strikingly geometric constellation Lyra, the Lyre. (en)
- Venus passes the star Delta Scorpii this week. In June 2000, Argentine stargazer Sebastián Otero caught Delta in a midlife crisis, changing from a normal star to one that varies in brightness. (en)
- The constellations of the Great Sea spill from the jug of Aquarius, the Water Carrier. And Neptune, the outermost planet, is in Aquarius now. (en)
- Three bright lights dominate the late-spring sky: Spica, the brightest star of Virgo the Maiden, Arcturus, the brightest star of Boötes the Herdsman, and the ringed planet Saturn. (en)
- Three spectacularly close approaches take place in the heavens this week. The Moon meets the stars Spica and Zubenelgenubi, and Venus passes close to Regulus. (en)
- If we’re lucky, Comet ISON will become faintly visible in the predawn sky this week. But comets are notoriously unpredictable, so nobody can say for sure what will happen. (en)
- Cygnus the Swan flies high overhead. The Great Rift that splits the Milky Way in two starts near the heart of Cygnus. (en)
- Splendid Leo the Lion rears up on its hind legs in the evening sky. Most constellations bear little resemblance to their names, but Leo really does look like a lion. (en)
- Mercury, the innermost planet, appears in the predawn sky as Comet ISON races toward its rendezvous with the Sun. And Saturn, the ringed wonder, joins the action late in the week. (en)
- The constellation Puppis floats lower left of dazzling Sirius. It’s just the tip of the gigantic ancient constellation Argo, the ship that carried Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. (en)
- You can see five great star clusters with your unaided eyes on evenings at this time of year. One of them is widely known, but rarely recognized as a true star cluster. (en)
- Our Moon is more than one-quarter the diameter of Earth. The only comparable pair in the solar system is Pluto and its moon Charon. (en)
- Three of the sky’s finest star formations are climbing the southeastern sky. The Pleaides lead the way, then Jupiter with the Hyades, and magnificent Orion rounds out the group. (en)
- Two fine constellations are side by side in the south: hook-tailed Scorpius and Sagittarius, the Archer. The center of our Milky Way galaxy lies behind the stars of Sagittarius. (en)
- This is a great week to observe the Moon, our closest neighbor in space. It shows much detail to the unaided eye, and it’s amazing through binoculars and small telescopes. (en)
- Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, is a compact jewel of a constellation. And the dazzling orange star Arcturus nearby may be a visitor from another galaxy. (en)
- The Perseid meteor shower winds down this week. Learn about the different kinds of meteoroids, and what happens on the rare occasions when they strike Earth’s surface. (en)
- This week features a close pairing of Mercury and Venus, the beginning of summer, and the largest and closest full Moon of the year. (en)
- The Big Dipper is now at its highest in the northern sky. Galileo discovered the double star Mizar in its handle because he was looking for parallax, trying to prove that Earth goes around the Sun. (en)
- Thanksgiving week is new Moon week, allowing what might be our last good view of the summer Milky Way. Also, let’s take a look at Venus and Jupiter, the two brightest planets. (en)
- Cancer the Crab is home to the Praesepe, or Beehive. It looks like a cloud of light to the unaided eye, but binoculars show that it’s a glorious star cluster. (en)
- Magnificent Scorpius, the Scorpion, is at its highest around 10 or 11 pm. Its brightest star is dazzling reddish Antares, meaning "rival of Mars." (en)
- The Moon experiences a partial lunar eclipse before dawn on Monday. And we look at the historical and scientific importance of Tuesday’s Transit of Venus across the Sun. (en)
- As the Moon waxes to half lit, let’s take a look at the brightest star in each section of the sky: Vega setting in the west, Fomalhaut cruising low over the southern horizon, and Capella rising in the east. (en)
- Mars, the Red Planet, is beginning to appear in the evening sky. In many ways, Mars is the planet most like Earth, with deserts, dust storms, and maybe even running water on rare occasions. (en)
- Venus passes through the Pleiades star cluster on Monday and Tuesday. And Saturn, the magnificent ringed planet, is now well up in the evening sky. (en)
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