Joe Rao is Space.com's skywatching columnist, as well as a veteran meteorologist and eclipse chaser who also serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications.
When the waning crescent moon rises in the southeast around 2 a.m. local time on Friday morning, May 31, it will be accompanied by Saturn.If you have a telescope, you might want to consider setting your alarm on Friday for around 4 a.m. local daylight time .
The word synodic is derived from the ancient Greek word"sunodos," which by the mid 1600's became the English word"synod," which means"meeting"; because atphase, the moon"meets" the sun. Thus, a synodic month begins at the new moon, and the moon is entering the last quarter of that month at its last quarter phase.+1.
Over the years, people have told me that they own a telescope but have never viewed Saturn through it. The reason? Most beginners inappears a distinctive fiery orange color. Saturn is indeed bright, but does not seem to overly"stand out" against the star background. What you really would like to have is some sort of benchmark to know positively where it is.
And don't forget to also check out the moon! Most might say that the best time to look at our nearest neighbor is when it's at full phase, but that's probably theto look at it! When the moon is full it tends to be overly bright as well as flat and one-dimensional in appearance. In contrast, around the several-day interval when the moon is around the first or last quarter phase is when we get the best views of the lunar landscape right along the sunrise-sunset line or terminator.
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