While green buds grow into leaves and expectant parents gobble suet at backyard feeders, our jolly moon fattens up, becoming the Full Budding Moon on the night of May 24/25.
Jupiter sinks lower in the evening twilight, but creeping up below it is Venus and below Venus comes a third planet, the shy, elusive Mercury. These three planets will be hard to see in the bright sky, Mercury the most difficult of all because it is the faintest and the deepest in the sun's glare. This week Mercury will set in the west-northwest about an hour after the sun. Venus now sets about 10 minutes after Mercury and Jupiter follows about 20 minutes later.
Look for this trio shortly after sunset. For most locations, this will be between 8:15 and 8:30 pm. Jupiter will probably be the first faint spark visible and Venus and Mercury will be diagonally below and right of it. Their motion is quick: their positions will change noticeably from one evening to another. By Wednesday the 22nd, Venus and Mercury will be almost side-by-side. Look carefully, with binoculars if they're handy, because Mercury will be only about a tenth as bright as Venus.
By Sunday, the 26th, the three planets will have waltzed into a tight little equilateral triangle winking in the western twilight. If the sky is clear, binoculars will not only reveal tiny Mercury and brilliant Venus but Jupiter's flattened disk (Jupiter rotates so fast that it has a slightly squashed appearance) and two or three of its moons.
As the month ends, the planets will change places, with Mercury rising higher in the sky, Jupiter sinking lower, and Venus between them. Jupiter will soon disappear behind the sun but Mercury and Venus will shine together throughout June. On Monday, June 10th, a thin crescent moon will set just left of the two planets, giving us another twilight triangle to admire.
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