May’s full moon rises at 8:22 Thursday in the southeast just as the sun sets in the northwest. It travels a low, shallow arc through southern skies, finally setting in the southwest just as the sun crests the northeast horizon at 5:44. With spring fully abloom, this is known as the Flower Moon, the Corn Planting Moon and the Milk Moon. Over the ages we have given the moon its many folksy names to describe the seasons here on Earth. Of course, it’s always the same old moon....

As darkness settles, the bright glow of Jupiter pierces the east-southeast horizon, by far the brightest light in the sky, as the moon spends this week waning through pre-dawn skies. The gaseous giant is high in the south at midnight, and as dawn nears, it sets beneath the western horizon. Around 10pm, the star Aldebaran rises in the east. The red glaring eye of Taurus the bull is one of the oldest recognized stars within one of the oldest recognized constellations. Among the paintings found on...

  The waxing moon reaches first-quarter phase Friday, appearing high in the southwest with sunset at 8:24. Each night after, the moon appears 15 degrees farther to the east and sets roughly 30 minutes later.  Thursday the moon shines less than 10 degrees to the right of Mars, well within the space of your fist held at arm’s length. A little beyond Mars shines Regulus, the heart of Leo the lion. While Mars is only a little brighter than its apparent stellar neighbor, the planet...

  As if to hammer another nail into summer’s coffin, the sun this week sets before 7:00. The darkening sky reveals Venus tight above the southwest horizon, and while the evening star is brilliant at magnitude –4, it, too, is fleeting and sets shortly after the sun. As the sun and Venus set in the west, Jupiter rises in the east. Last week this gaseous giant reached opposition — its point opposite the sun as seen from our earthbound vantage — and so rises with sunset...