Mars and the moon will meet up in the early morning sky on Friday (May 15). If you're up at least an hour before sunrise, you can spot the pair huddled together just above the southeast horizon.
The last-quarter moon will be in conjunction with the Red Planet, meaning they will share the same celestial longitude, tonight (May 14) at 10:02 p.m. EDT (0202 GMT on May 15). At that time, the moon will be 2.75 degrees to the south of Mars. (For reference, 10 degrees is about as wide as your fist held at arm's length.)
The moment of their closest approach comes nearly two hours later, at 11:52 p.m. EDT (0352 GMT), when they'll be separated by only 2.58 degrees, according to In-The-Sky.org. Mars and the moon won't rise until a few hours after the conjunction, but they'll still be pretty close together once they pop over the horizon.
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For skywatchers in New York City, Mars will rise at 2:18 a.m. local time, and the moon will rise 22 minutes later. The sun will rise at 5:38 a.m. local time, so that gives you nearly two hours to see Mars with the moon before the planet fades into daylight.
To find out when the sun, moon and planets rise and set from your location, check out the handy night sky calculator at timeanddate.com.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, you can send images and comments to spacephotos@space.com.
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Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
