Saturn is making its way slowly into the evening sky. The moon, just a few days past full, slides two degrees south of Saturn tonight. Saturn is on the Aries-Pisces constellation border, while the moon is actually in the constellation Cetus to the south. Aldebaran, one of the stars of the zodiac constellation Taurus, is close to the moon this evening. Aldebaran is a yellow giant, larger and more luminous than our sun.
Astronomical terminology refers to a number of great circles in the sky.
One, the celestial equator, is an imagined extension of Earth's equator. This is the path followed by the sun, moon, and major and minor planets. In the late evenings this month, the ecliptic is anchored by Saturn in the east, rising to about 40 degrees above the southeastern horizon near Jupiter and on past Neptune, Uranus and Pluto to the western horizon. This also puts Jupiter at its minimum distance from Earth, about 480 million miles away. The moon continually works its way eastward, covering its own diameter each hour.