This evening’s sky

Here is the scene in early twilight.

It is drawn for a mid-USA location, will hardly be different for anywhere at a similar latitude.

The globe of Earth is rolling away from the west point on the horizon, and, at this moment in its orbit, is hurtling away from the point in the sky marked “antapex of Earth’s way”

Arrows through the planets and Sun show their movement over 5 days (relative to the starry background).

You may be able to spot Jupiter, little more than 2° above the horizon, but hardly Mercury, which is passing 3° south of it and is 1.5 magnitudes dimmer.  They would be much more easily seen from Earth’s southern hemisphere, as you can imagine by mentally twisting the whole scene so that the ecliptic and celestial equator slope up rightward from the horizon.

 

One thought on “This evening’s sky”

  1. I was able to spot Mercury and Jupiter tonight, as well as Friday and Saturday night, but only by going to the bridge by my house, and using binoculars for Mercury. It has been weird going to and back from Australia this month, and the planetary shifts that occurred.

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