Old Town Inn Completes The Partial Mind

Well I tried I really did but could I find the moon let alone Venus on Sunday afternoon, well the short answer is no. And if any of you tried and failed as well, well that’ll teach you to listen to me.

Venus now moving from Taurus to Gemini) is the bright Evening Star shining in the west-northwest during and after twilight, and remains completely unmissable Capella is the bright star far to its upper right.


Mars (magnitude +0.9, in Cancer) is high in the west during evening, very far upper left of Venus along the ecliptic. Mars is moving eastward against the stars; week by week it's closing in on Regulus to its upper left. They'll pass each other on June 6th, 0.8° apart.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.2, below the Circlet of Pisces) shines in the east-southeast at the first light of dawn. Nothing else there is nearly so bright.

On Saturday the "star" and that’s star in quotes. above the gibbous Moon this evening (by about 8°: as seen from North America) is Saturn. The much fainter star about 2° to Saturn's lower right this week is Beta Virginis, which although my Latin doesn’t extend beyond amo agricola, means I think, virgin second class. And if you’re curious amo agricola means I love the farmer.

Saturn is high in the southwest during the evening. In a telescope Saturn's rings are tilted a mere 1.7° from edge-on, their minimum tilt for the next 15 years.

On Friday as dusk fades into night, turn binoculars or a telescope on Venus in the west-northwest. Look less than 1° lower left of Venus for the big open star cluster M35, but wait until the end of twilight

And that’s about it for this week a week that ends on the 468th anniversary of the ending of the Diet of Worms, when Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, issued the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw, a bit like a pious German Billy the Kid I guess.

May 2010

This is one of the first images of the Sun in the extreme ultraviolet taken by the new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It will be producing solar images of unprecedented detail with over 1.5 Terrabytes of data being returned to Earth each day! It does rather look as though the Sun is awakening from its deep sleep over the last couple of years!

Well it’s over for another year, and over the course of two days the average of our visitors has tripled and some may say though I wouldn’t dare, that their average IQ has been similarly engorged. This means that it’s the beginning of May, so here’s some highlights for the coming month.

You may remember that last week I told you that Venus is visible sometimes during the day, well on the 16th which is a Sunday the moon is the merest whisker below Venus.. Its closest approach is at 10:00 BST when the Moon's northern edge is just 0.25 degrees below the planet. At 10 am, the Moon and Venus will lie just 5 degrees south of East and the newish moon will be naked eye visible. They’ll lie 30 degrees away from the Sun, but still be VERY careful when searching for them and keep your binoculars well away form the Sun!! The pair, which will lie close to the open cluster M35 in Gemini (1 degree above the Moon) that evening, should also make a beautiful target with binoculars as night falls.

Jupiter, having passed behind the Sun on the 28th February, has now reappeared in the pre-dawn sky. At the beginning of May it will rise in the east as morning twilight begins and, at magnitude -2.1, could be seen in binoculars given a clear low eastern horizon. During the month it will gradually rise earlier and, by end of the month, will rise about 2:30 and brighten to -2.3 magnitude, which is pretty bright. A small telescope will easily pick up Jupiter’s four Galilean moons as they weave their way around it.

Saturn may now be easily seen in the south after sunset lying in Virgo down to the lower left of the constellation Leo. It can then be seen for much of the night with a magnitude +0.8 rising (which means getting fainter) to +1 during the month. The ring system is still close to edge-on and so will still appear very thin - the reason why Saturn is not a bright as it is when the rings are more open. For the first time in 15 years we are now begining to see the northern face of the rings. A small telescope will easily show its brightest satellite, Titan at magnitude 7.8.

Mercury passed in front of the Sun on April 28th and will appear in the morning twilight sky during the latter part of May reaching its greatest elongation from the Sun on the 26th. However, the ecliptic is at a very shallow angle to the horizon and so Mercury will only lie about 5 degrees above the horizon half an hour before sunrise. You might just be able to pick it out with binoculars given a very low eastern horizon.

Mars remains visible (at magnitude +0.7 changing to +1.1 during the month) in the south-west after sunset. It is now moving ~1/2 degree a day eastwards from Cancer into Leo. On the 31st May, it will lie just 3.5 degrees to the right of Regulus.

And right at the end of May we have Comet McNaught. In the early hours of the morning at the end of May, binoculars should help you spot a comet. It’ll be a night mare to find but if I can figure out how to tell you where to look I will in 3 weeks.

And that was night sky for the month ending on the 99th anniversary of the blessing and launch of RMS Titanic.