The moon still in Taurus Monday morning
Discuss Print Me Email to FriendTonight's Sky for Sunday, Jul 27 2008
Monday morning before dawn, look for the waning crescent moon rising in the east. The moon will be about halfway between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters. All are in the constellation Taurus.
Aldebaran is the brightest star in Taurus. The Hyades is the V-shaped pattern around this star. Meanwhile, the Pleiades are a tiny dipper-shaped cluster located above the Hyades in the predawn sky tomorrow. The Hyades and Pleiades are the two brightest and most noticeable open clusters in the night sky. Open star clusters are groups of stars that are gravitationally bound and formed out of the same stellar gas cloud.
The Hyades and Pleiades are among the closest open star clusters to Earth. The Pleiades are approximately 440 light-years away and the Hyades are about one-third that distance: 150 light-years. Because the Pleiades cluster is more distant, the Pleiades’ stars appear more clustered together than those of the Hyades. The closest open cluster to us is the Ursa Major moving cluster, at about 75 light-years away. Many Big Dipper stars belong to this cluster. But we don’t discern this cluster because its stars are too close to us and appear too spread out.
By the way, the waning crescent phase is a great time to use binoculars to see the craters and other features on the moon. Unfortunately, Monday morning you won’t be able to see the Apollo 11 landing site. For that, you’ll have to wait until the moon is a waxing crescent phase a few weeks from now.
