On Monday night, look directly west to see brilliant Venus 27 degrees above the horizon. Just above Venus are Pollux on the left and Castor on the right. They are the βtwinsβ in Gemini the Twins.
In the coming week look toward the southeastern horizon at 9 p.m. to see the front part of Scorpius the Scorpion rising with the bright red star Antares at its heart. Just above the pinchers of Scorpius is Saturn, which is coming into our evening sky. In fact, on Friday Saturn will be at opposition.
Opposition is the fancy astronomy term for saying a solar system body is on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun. The elongation (distance) of a solar system body at opposition is 180 degrees from the sun. Opposition only applies to solar system bodies with orbits farther from the sun than the Earth. Objects at opposition have their maximum illumination by the sun. Roughly speaking, a body at opposition rises at sunset, reaches maximum altitude at midnight, and sets at sunrise local time.
