Look for brightest stars tonight with nearly full moon

You won't need a flashlight if you are taking a stroll tonight under a clear sky! The bright moon will illuminate the night side of the planet. This is a problem for stargazing. So, let's take a look at the brightest stars you can spot tonight. These stars will shine brilliantly despite moonlight. They can also be seen from cities with high light pollution.

If you want to see the brightest star of them all, you will have to get up early. Sirius is only visible for a few hours before sunrise, but it really stands out from other stars. It is twice as bright as any other nighttime star (but the planets Jupiter and Venus are brighter).

You can see it rise after Orion. It just so happens that Orion is made up of two of the top 10 brightest stars! Look for Betelgeuse, a super red giant, and Rigel. Betelgeuse is so large that if it were placed where our sun its, the outer edge would extend to the orbit of Mars, swallowing up the Earth!

The brightest star that is visible most of the night in the Northern Hemisphere is Vega. Look for it nearly overhead during the evening. Two other nearby stars are nearly as bright. The three of these stars form the summer triangle. It is named that because they become visible early in summer.

The brightest star in the evening sky is Arcturus. It will be visible for a few hours before it sets. Follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper to find this massive orange-colored star.

This timelapse from Accuweather.com Astronomy Facebook friend Ronald Shawley shows how much ambient light the moon adds to the rest of the night sky. Look how dark the sky gets towards the end of the video. That is after the moon has set, a few hours before sunrise.

Thanks for reading. Just look up, you never know what you will see!

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