The Sky Today on Wednesday, May 14: The Moon and Antares

The Moon passes 0.3° south of Antares in the constellation Scorpius at 1 A.M. EDT. The pair is high in the southern sky at this time, particularly for observers in the eastern half of the U.S., offering an excellent view. (Observers farther west will want to wait an additional hour or two for the region to rise higher in the sky as Earth rotates.) The two are so close they will just fit together in a wide-field telescope’s field, and appear comfortably within the same field of view of binoculars.

You’ll spot the Moon easily, still appearing nearly Full with 98 percent of its surface illuminated. Antares, shining at magnitude 1.1, is just above and slightly to the right of our satellite in the sky this morning. The bright red heart of the Scorpion is a well-known red supergiant star that weighs in at some 15 to 18 times the mass of our own Sun. Now in the later stages of its life, Antares has cooled but swelled up — if dropped into the center of our solar system, its surface would reach more than halfway out to the orbit of Jupiter. The star shows off a lovely orange-red hue through binoculars or a telescope, similar in color to the planet Mars. 

Sunrise: 5:46 A.M.
Sunset: 8:08 P.M.
Moonrise: 10:37 P.M.
Moonset: 6:32 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (96%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.

For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full Sky This Week column.