What’s happening in the evening sky?
Another of those “trios” or very tight groupings: Saturn, Neptune, and the Moon get to be within a small circle, which reaches a minimum diameter of 3.83°. (The moment of that minimum is about an hour before the time of our picture.) The trio is at a convenient elongation, 166° from the Sun.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations. Saturn is exaggerated 150 times in size, to show the current attitude of its rings. The Moon is exaggerated 4 times in size. It is shown at its apparent position for the location on Earth, displaced by parallax; the arrows are along its path as seen from the center of the Earth.
What spoils it for the unaided eye is the relative brightness of the bodies at the time, expressed by their “magnitudes” in the astronomical sense: Moon -12, Saturn 1 (like the “first-magnitude” stars), Neptune 8 (far dimmer). You may be able to pick out Saturn with binoculars.
For the mind’s eye the scene holds interest. Full Moon has to be near the point we mark as the “anti-Sun.” The crossing of the moving bodies’ paths occurs near the March equinox point – where the Sun, half a year from now, will cross the celestial equator northward.
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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.
One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or, if you click ‘Refresh’ or press function key 5, you’ll see the latest version.
Maybe I’m trying to split hairs, but if you are comparing the equinox points to a road intersection with 4 way stop signs that could be inaccurate.
Celestial bodies are moving from the west to east along the ecliptic. The ecliptic and celestial equator (and of course the whole sky) is moving east to west. Considering that the planets sometimes go east to west along the ecliptic during retrograde motion, that would be comparable to traffic moving in 3 directions, making a 3 way stop necessary to prevent accidents.
Perhaps you were inferring motion of your eyes, which can scan both east or west along both equators, which WOULD make the equinox points a 4 way intersection.
Speaking of Saturn, Enceladus may harbor organic life, or precursors of it. per studies of a recent volcano on Enceladus.
Enceladus is the 6th largest of Saturn’s 274 moons. It is very bright because it is covered with snow.