If you have a look at the sky on Monday evening, you’ll certainly figure out where Jupiter is.  It’s fairly close to that fat crescent Moon.  

First quarter moon is Wednesday and when you go outside around seven and look high overhead in the south you’ll see that lovely half moon.  You know, the one that looks like somebody cut it in half with a pair of scissors.  So, if it’s half full, why do they call it ‘first quarter moon’?

Well, ‘half moon’ describes the Moon’s appearance and ‘first quarter moon’ describes its location.  It’s one quarter of the way around the Earth measured from the starting point of new moon.

Although the waxing Moon will be in the early evening sky, it won’t prevent you from seeing one of the sky’s most famous sights.  Take a TV break any time after 8:00 p.m. this week, go outside and have a look at the eastern sky.  You'll see something that tells you winter is approaching just as strongly as the shorter days.  You'll spy THE premier winter constellation, Orion the Hunter.  

For most us, Orion is an old familiar friend.  He's easy to recognize.  His belt is made of three bright stars that are evenly spaced and of the same brightness.  He's lying on his side in our eastern sky with his shoulders to the north and his feet to the south.  Go out and greet an old familiar friend this week.

Arcing over your head tonight and traveling down the sky toward Orion the Hunter is one of the sky’s most awesome spectacles.  If you have dark skies and there aren't too many overhead clouds, you'll see a band of clouds that arch across the sky from southeast to northwest.  Those clouds aren't made of water; they're made of stars.  That’s the Milky Way, the giant star city we live in.  It arches from the disappearing Sagittarius the Archer, flows between two stars of the Summer Triangle and goes through Cassiopeia the Queen and Perseus the Hero, to disappear north of the rising Orion the Hunter.  Truly an awesome sight!

There’s another naked-eye galaxy in our sky tonight besides the one we live in.  Just go outside and face north.  That’s to your left if you're facing Orion the Hunter.  Measure three fist-widths up from Orion’s belt and six fist-widths to the left and you’ll see a bright group of stars that form a lopsided “M” in the northern sky.  That “M” is Cassiopeia the Queen.  

Now use the triangle of stars that forms the left and upper hump of the “M” as a pointer and measure one and a half fist-widths up.  You should see a ‘star’ that looks strangely out of focus.  That fuzzy looking ‘star’ is not a star.  That’s the Great Galaxy in Andromeda and it’s the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way.  It's over 2 million light years away and the light that interacts with your eyes to allow you to see it is over 2 million years old.

If you measure three fist-widths straight down from the left star of Cassiopeia, you see a solitary star that’s not very bright.  That’s Polaris, the North Star.  Polaris is important because of its position, not because it's bright.  Polaris is hard to find in fall and winter here on Guam because the Big and Little Dippers are below the horizon.  See if you can find Polaris tonight.  Galaxies and the North Star.  The sky is a rich feast!
 

Would you like to be on the Planetarium e-mail list and receive a monthly reminder of the Planetarium shows and occasional notices of cool things in the sky?  Just send an e-mail to stars@guam.net requesting that you be added and I'll put you on the list!

Don't forget that you can hear this information on Guam's public radio station KPRG, 89.3 on your radio dial.  The program is called Tropical Skies and it airs twice on Monday, during the noon hour at 12:25 and at 6:01 in the evening.  Support your public radio station

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