Another Pretty Morning: Update

UPDATE: Well, a lot of use were clouded out today. Tomorrow is a different arrangement by worth trying. The Moon will be over near the Pleiades tomorrow morning. Venus and Mars will still be very close together. The Moon will be even lower in the sky Sunday morning, but will provide a useful guide to find Mercury. Mercury will be almost directly south (to the right) of the Moon Sunday morning. Don't give up quite yet...still some interesting sites to see!

Conjunctions of planets and the Moon happen on a fairly regular basis. The players, however, are constantly changing and we get different combinations at different times.

Tomorrow morning, June 19th, we get a nice trio before dawn. This trio will consist of the Moon, Venus and Mars. The Moon is a waxing crescent. If you have binoculars (or a telescope) train them on Venus and you can see its phase as well! Venus is about half lit right now and even a modest pair of binoculars reveals its phase. Mars is not nearly as bright, but should be easily visible between the Moon and Venus. Mercury rises right beneath the Pleaides later (exact time depends on where you are) but it will probably be very difficult to see in the pre-dawn glow.

This should be particularly nice rising over Lake Michigan!

Here is the sky chart for tomorrow morning...click to embiggen.

I am not that great at getting up in the morning, but will set my camera up before bed tonight and an alarm to see if I can drag myself out in the morning.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.