The moon will not be in the evening sky for several days giving us dark skies to enjoy some of the fainter constellations, one of which is Cetus the Whale (or Sea Monster).
Cetus is a large constellation and will be directly south about 45 degrees above the horizon at 9 p.m. It is below Pisces the Fishes and Aries the Ram and partially above and to the west of Eridanus the River. These are all faint constellations. Even in dark skies, I have difficulty finding the main outline of Cetus.
Cetus is worth the effort to locate as it is an ancient, classic constellation coming down to us from myth and legend. It has faint objects of interest to amateur and professional astronomers, and it has a most interesting star Omicron Ceti, also known as Mira β βthe amazing one.β
Most of the time Mira is not visible to the naked eye but over a period of roughly 330 days it brightens enough to be easily visible in a dark sky. Sometimes it is part of the constellation and sometimes not.
Mira is a red giant star in the last stages of its life some 420 light years away. It is irregularly swelling and contracting while blowing off gas and dust and will end its life as a small, hot white dwarf star.
