Greetings everyone! Since you can only have a solar eclipse at new moon, that means we’ll have a waxing crescent moon in our early evening sky all week. Make sure you go out and have a look at it on Friday night. Although they won’t form a smiley face, the moon will be quite close to Spica and Jupiter in the western sky.

Before that moon gets too bright let’s do some stargazing in the southern sky. Don’t forget to have a look at Saturn which is a little over five fist-widths straight up from due south and two fist-widths above the bend in Scorpius the Scorpion.

We’ve talked a lot about the Scorpion this summer. It really looks like a giant fishhook and it dangles from Antares in our southern sky. Near the Scorpion is a large, dim constellation that you’ve probably never heard of, but it too holds some amazing sights.

Just above the Scorpion and almost straight overhead at one hour after sunset this week is a large constellation shaped vaguely like an ice cream cone with the opening toward the Scorpion's claws. That's the body of Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer.

Ophiuchus was a doctor and snake venom was used as medicine in ancient times. That’s why there are snakes coiled around the caduceus, the emblem of the medical profession. The sky doctor is also holding a snake. The constellation Serpens is the only constellation divided into two separate parts. Serpens Kaput the Snake's Head winds upward past the bright star Arcturus and Serpens Cauda the Snake's Tail lies to the left of Ophiuchus. See if you can find the doctor tonight!

Previous Starry Starry Night: 

Another fairly bright constellation lives just under the Scorpion's hooked tail and it's due south this week. If you look below the fishhook in the southern sky, you'll see a group of stars that looks like a chair and if you’re a cruciverbalist, you know the name of that chair. And what, pray tell, is a cruciverbalist?

Well, the Latin root ‘cruci’ means ‘cross’ and ‘verbalist’ means someone who has something to do with words. A cruciverbalist is someone who does crossword puzzles. The name of that chair is Ara the Altar and the three-letter word with the clue “Sky altar” is a familiar one to anybody who does crosswords. See if you can find Ara the Altar in the sky tonight.

If you look above Ara and to the left, just below and slightly left of the fishhook's barb, you probably won't see much. That area is home to an obscure constellation named by Louis de la Caille in the 1700s. He named most of his constellations for the scientific instruments and discoveries of the time. He's also responsible for the Furnace, the Painter's Easel, the Chisel and the Clock, to name only a few of his obscure southern constellations. The one below the Scorpion's stinger is Telescopium the Telescope and I personally think that it's a shame that this important astronomical instrument is immortalized with such a dim constellation. The visible stars make absolutely no pattern at all, and they certainly don't look like a telescope.

You can attempt to see the telescope tonight or its even dimmer cousin to the east, Microscopium the Microscope. Or you may want to wait till next month when things should dry up a bit. But cloudy or clear, the universe still awaits you!

Pam Eastlick is The Star Lady.

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