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Getting what we wish for: this week on The Dark Sky

The moon is waning slowly through the morning sky this week, stopping to meet the star Aldebaran, the fiery bull's eye in the constellation Taurus on Friday, an hour before sunrise. This will be a beautiful sight, visible in the East at about 5:19 AM.

The technical term for this meeting of the moon with a star is "occultation" and it happens when the moon passes directly between us and a star.

Now, the moon follows nearly the same path through the sky month after month, but it only sometimes appears to have this direct encounter with certain stars. Starting in January this year, the moon began a series of occultations with the star Aldebaran that will happen every month from January 2016 until September 2018! That's 48 consecutive occultations of one star: the bull's eye of Taurus.

Now consider, as our closest celestial neighbor, the moon's motion is visible to us. This is why the ancients believed that the moon "set things in motion". So for instance, the stars appear fixed in the sky, but when the moon comes into contact with them, it's as though their stories are set in motion.

So what is Aldebaran's story?

As the bulls eye, Aldebaran is the mark or the goal we seek to attain, so for the moon to occult this star for nearly 2 1/2 years it's as though we are at a point where we can actually attain our goals. Of course, this always comes with the caveat to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it!

The most poetic way I can think to describe this is with John Keats is poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Keats ponders the figures etched eternally in place on the urn, and how that's not such an unfortunate state of being, because though the lover will never catch his love, he will be in love forever, with the promise of love always ahead of him. But what happens if the figures are set in motion, and the lover attains his love? What greater responsibility is wrought upon one who is given freedom to actually attain that goal?

It is a worthy thought as you watch the moon occult Aldebaran on Friday morning, and again and again every month from now through September 2018.

Follow this link for John Keats' poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" with its reference to the "heifer lowing at the skies" as though the poet speaks not only of figures fixed on an urn, but of stars fixed in the sky: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44477