Double Double

You don’t have to be LeBron James or Tim Duncan to score a double double tonight. Just look in the western sky in early evening. The solar system offers up two close pairings. Each of them consists of one bright, prominent object plus a much fainter one. One of the doubles is anchored by the crescent Moon. Sunlight illuminates about one-eighth of the lunar disk, with the rest of it in darkness. Yet you can easily make out the entire disk because it’s bathed in earthshine — sunlight reflected off of our own Earth. It gives the “dark” portion of the Moon a ghostly appearance. The Moon’s companion is the planet Uranus. It’s only about a degree or so to the lower right of the Moon — less than the width of a finger held at arm’s length. The planet is just below the edge of visibility right now. But it should be easy to spot with binoculars. It looks like a tiny star, with perhaps a hint of blue-green. The other double is far to the lower right of the Moon. Its anchor is the planet Venus, th