THE 2013 Noctilucent Cloud Season is just about over now. There were several truly beautiful displays over the summer, so I hope you managed to see at least one of them. If you didn't, there's always a chance of a late straggler show of NLC during this first week of August, so keep looking north around midnight and you might yet see something amazing.
If you're an early riser, insomniac or vampire you have a chance to see a lovely celestial gathering before dawn on August 4. Go outside around 4am, look to the east, where the sky is brightening, and you'll see a very pretty, very thin crescent Moon hanging above the trees, beneath a trio of planets strung out in a line. Directly above the Moon, Jupiter will look like a yellow blue star. To Jupiter's lower left, Mars will be a fainter, orange star. And to the lower left of Mars, just above the horizon, tiny Mercury will be a tiny silver pinprick.
If you have binoculars, look at the Moon through them on this morning. The crescent will look glorious, and you may also see the un-illuminated part of the Moon glowing a soft grey-blue with what astronomers call Earthshine.
Stuart Atkinson
Eddington Astronomical Society of Kendal
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