The moon will dominate our weekend sky into next week. Tonight the gibbous moon appears in the zodiacal constellation Taurus and it appears way up high in the sky at least for a few night. Sunday, the moon advances into the northern and highest zodiacal constellation Gemini. It is night you might see your shadow, a moon shadow.

The moon is full and named the Ice Moon on the evening of Thursday, January 25. The Old Farmer's Almanac calls this full moon the Wolf Moon, however we don't have any wolves. It is a small full moon. In only four days the moon reaches apogee, its farthest from the earth. Take a good look at this rising full moon and see if you can tell that it is smaller than the ones we've seen in the past.

Our full moons in the months ahead won't be as high in the sky as in the past few months. Just as we are seeing a seasonal change with the sun, our full moons change too.

Morning Planets

The brightest planet in the southeastern sky at dawn is Venus. The planet is moving through the zodiacal constellation Sagittarius. Look to the east of Venus and you might see the two visual planets Mars and Mercury. They are hard to pick out in the morning glare. Mercury is the closest to Venus. Mars is probably too low in the east to be seen without binoculars.