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EDT, Europa is passing onto the disk from the east. There’s a lot going on around the king of planets, too. EDT - and at magnitude –2.9, this is a much better target for tonight. The Moon passes 2° south of Jupiter at 2 P.M. We’ll revisit this tiny target when conditions are better. Unfortunately, because it is so small and faint, its feeble light will be difficult to find even with a large amateur scope because the Moon is so bright. The distant dwarf planet Pluto is stationary at 2 P.M. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M.
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*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. But in 2014, that planet disappeared - and researchers realized it had never been a planet at all, but likely the icy remains of a massive collision that previously took place within the disk. It is perhaps most famous for its protoplanetary disk, within which astronomers believed they’d spotted a young planet with the Hubble Space Telescope. Fomalhaut is a young star some 25 light-years away. Of course, those in the Southern Hemisphere enjoy this star at a much higher altitude in the sky. An hour after sunset, it is 6.5° high in the southeast and rising. At magnitude 7.7, you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to make out Neptune’s small disk it may prove a challenge with the bright, nearly Full Moon so close by.Įasier to find may be the magnitude 1.2 glow of Fomalhaut, the brightest star in Piscis Austrinus, which sits south of Aquarius. Both are visible after sunset in northeastern Aquarius, near where the constellation’s border with Pisces. In the evening sky, the Moon will pass 3° south of Neptune at 11 P.M. Currently in Capricornus, the main-belt world will now start moving northeast toward Aquarius, where our targets for tonight lie.
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