A speeding planet Mercury has climbed higher in the sky, leaving Venus and Jupiter in the evening haze below.  Venus is much the brightest of the three and should pop out of the evening twilight sometime around a quarter before nine.  If haze fills the sky, Mercury and Jupiter may still be visible in binoculars.  Locate Venus above and left of the spot where the sun has disappeared.  From Venus, sweep down and to the right to find Jupiter.  The giant planet is unmistakable:  even at 8 or 10 power, it will stand out of the dusk as a pale disk.  Now scan up and to the left for Mercury.  It’s about an equal distance above Venus, shining like a faint spark in the twilight.

After blazing through fall, winter, and spring, Jupiter will take the summer off.  When summer arrives officially on June 21st, Jupiter will have disappeared into the glare of the sun.  Mercury and Venus, however, will continue to dance together.  By summer’s eve, Mercury will have dropped down and Mercury and Venus will set cheek-to-cheek two hours after sunset.

Returning home from my stargazing, I happened to see more lights in the sky.  The first fireflies of the season were overhead, zigzagging through the branches of two maple trees.  Since an alert observer in Marshfield, Vermont, also reported fireflies, I was probably not hallucinating.

Summer is coming.  Really!
 

            Keep looking up!
            - Bob Hamlin
                 <rhamlinatdartmouth.edu>

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