posted on Mar, 11 2007 @ 04:09 PM
Last night, the moon was basically right on top of the supergiant star "Antares". Antares is reddish and is one of the brightest stars in the sky.
Some people confuse it with Mars since it is about the same color and lies on the ecliptic. Oddly enough Atares is a binary system, and it's
companion star (Antares B) is blue-ish (and you described the star you saw as reddish-blue), but is impossible to see without a telescope, since
Antares A is so bright. There are times when the moon is blocking Antares A, and Antares B can be visible with a telescope. Also Jupiter was to the
moon's "11 o'clock" position last night and will be at about the moon's "2 o'clock" position tonight.
The fact that you never noticed that bright "star" near the moon may be because the moon isn't always near it. The Moon rises about 1 hour later
every night relative to the stars and planets, thus every night the moon is near a different celestial body. In most of the U.S., the moon rose about
2:00-2:30 AM last night (or 1:00 - 1:30 AM if you're were still on standard time rather than daylight savings time.). It will rise approximately
3:00-3:30 AM (daylight savings time) tonight, 4:00-4:30 AM tomorrow and so on until it begins to rise during the daylight hours.
Tonight when the moon rises, it will be further away from Antares.