• The Zodiac is the narrow band of stars circling through the heavens and running on both sides of the ecliptic. It's marked by the sun's path across our sky, because officially the ecliptic is the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun.
• The moon orbits on nearly this same plane. So as the moon makes its monthly rounds - orbiting again and again around Earth - it moves in front of the constellations of the Zodiac, passing the same stars and constellations again and again. Tonight - May 26, 2012 - the waxing crescent moon shines in front of the faint constellation Cancer.
• Cancer? Here's your constellation
• The chart at the top of this post

shows tonight's moon in Cancer. But Cancer is so faint that you will have a tough time spotting it in the moon's glare.
• Instead, use tonight to learn what's cool about this constellation. First, take a look at the chart to see the boundaries of Cancer. The sun passes in front of this constellation from about July 20 to August 10 every year. Wait, you say, that doesn't match astrological dates? That's because the constellation of Cancer as we see it in the real sky - and the astrological sign of Cancer - are not the same thing.
• Cancer, though one of the dimmest constellations of the Zodiac, is still very significant. In ancient times, this constellation won much fanfare because the sun shone in front of Cancer during the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice. Some

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