Starwatch: Watch the crescent moon pass Saturn as dusk gathers | Astronomy
A A thin crescent moon passes Saturn this week, providing an enriching conjunction. This will be the perfect way to start your evening, a little quiet contemplation of the night sky as the evening twilight gives way to total darkness.
The chart shows the view to the southwest from London at 18:00 GMT, although the pair will be visible from when dusk begins to gather.
The moon will be just under four days old. With only 15% of its visible surface illuminated, it should also be a good opportunity to see the “Earthshine”. This is when the unlit lunar surface is faintly revealed by sunlight reflected from our own planet onto the moon and bouncing back to us.
Saturn will appear as a stable, creamy point of light. Unlike the stars that will appear as the sky darkens, they will not twinkle.
Due to their extreme distance, stars appear as point sources of light and the movement of the atmosphere therefore causes them to fluctuate. A planet appears as a tiny disk, even if this extension is indiscernible to our eyes. The different movements of the atmosphere are distributed on average across the disk, which makes the planet stable.
The conjunction is also easily visible from the southern hemisphere.
