“Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
This week’s main attraction is a dance of the two brightest planets of all, Jupiter and Venus, low on the western horizon right after dark. Not only are they worth looking at with naked eyes as they appear to inch closer to each other, but this week they will be joined by one of the most beautiful sights in nature, a crescent Moon.
At certain times of the year, the Moon changes position in the sky giving viewers something to smile about. There are times when the crescent moon is oriented in such a manner so as to resemble a smile or a boat with the horns or cusps of the crescent pointing straight up. This is the so-called “wet moon” because it appears that the moon is holding water. This moon is also known as a “Cheshire moon” because it looks very much like the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
It's time like these that I wish I had a camera that would do justice to the scene that was in Wednesday's sky. Venus was just to the right of the moon's cusp, Jupiter below. A news anchor said that if you had a telescope, you could view Jupiter's moons and our moon both at the same time. Very cool.
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