Early risers are in for a treat this week, as a beautifully thin waning crescent moon lines up with the bright star Regulus, in Leo, and the brilliant jewel of Venus.
The chart shows the view looking east from London at 5am BST on 10 October. The moon will have just 18% of its visible surface illuminated. The alignment can be seen across the world at a similar time, although from places like Cape Town, South Africa, and Sydney, Australia, the triplet will rise in the pre-dawn skies, making Regulus a little trickier to spot.
Four days later, the moon will pass between Earth and the sun. This usually happens unnoticed from Earth, but this month the moon’s orbit carries it through Earth’s line of sight to the Sun and so will produce an eclipse.
Visible from much of North and South America, the moon will block some light from the sun, but because the moon will be close to the furthest point in its orbit, it will not totally block the sun. Instead it will create an annular eclipse, in which a ring of the sun’s surface is still visible around the moon.
