Mercury Again.

Well if you didn’t catch Mercury last week when it was on top of Jupiter, this week it’s at his highest above the western horizon, to night is its highest point. Mercury will be quite a bit higher than Jupiter until the weekend when it will rapidly fall into the horizon, Mercury does rather flip around, this is because it’s so close the sun and has an 88 day year, so by the time we get to mid summer’s day it will be back where it is now.

Venus shines low in the southeast during dawn, lower each week, you can still see it, unless Dean was lying, he claimed to have seen over Peninis last week, I wouldn’t know the planet of love sets at least 4 hours before I get up at the moment. But Venus is getting closer to the Sun all the time and will soon disappear.

This is all getting a bit sad because we are about to say goodbye to Jupiter as well it’s very low in the west and not easily seen. But if you haven’t a enough of it since September All you need is a clear evening and a viewing site with an good view down to the west horizon.  Note the spot where the Sun sets, wait another 15 minutes, and then start scanning above that spot for Jupiter and Mercury. Mercury is still about 12° — two binocular fields — above the horizon a half hour after sunset.

But they will all come back, in fact Venus, Mars and Jupiter all rise around 5 am on the 16^th of May and a week later Mercury joins them, so set your alarms.

And of course Mars is still out of sight behind the glare of the Sun.

Saturn rises around 8 p.m. It's highest in the south around 1 a.m. daylight saving time. Spica, slightly fainter, shines about 10° below Saturn all evening.

There is something else we can look out for, these next two weeks, when there's no moonlight in the sky at the end of twilight, are a chipper time to look for the zodiacal light. As the last of twilight is fading away, look for a vague but huge, tall, narrow pyramid of pearly light extending up from the western horizon. It slopes to the left, following the ecliptic. What you're seeing is interplanetary dust near the plane of the solar system, lit by the Sun.

That was your night sky for the week ending 1974^th anniversary of Caligula accepting the titles of the Principate, entitled to him by the Senate. He was initially reluctant to accept but his horse said he would have to sleep on the sofa if he didn’t, so he did.

Mercury Jupiter Conjunction.

This week for the first time for months we actually have something happen, a good conjunction, tonight mercury is within 2 degrees of Jupiter, pretty well due west at sunset. Sadly there’s not a huge amount of time to catch them, it should be dark enough to catch Jupiter soon after 7 it’s still pretty bright, though its about as far away from us as it gets at the moment, so find Jupiter first and Mercury which will be much dimmer, but will be right on top of the giant planet, and by 7:45 they’ve both set. But it’s the best chance to see Mercury this year. Because they are both so low western horizon you will need a pretty good low view of the western horizon, at least on St Mary’s because the accursed garrison will be in the way. As usual binoculars will help, you’ll certainly see Jupiter as a disc and maybe some of the Jovian moons, and if you’re prepared to use a little imagination you may see Mercury as a crescent. Mercury will be within 5 degrees of Jupiter right up until Friday. There’s a guide on the blog.

The other highlight happens next Sunday at 23:21, when the sun edges north over the equator and spring starts.

We still have Venus which rises around 6:30 in the South East followed very quickly by the sun, so it’s not what it was.

Saturn rises at around 9 again in the SE it’s quite easy to find before midnight look to the SE where you’ll see two similarly bright stars, Saturn is the upper of the two and Spica is the other, now here’s a load of exciting padding about Spica, it’s the brightest star in the in Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is 260 light years distant from Earth. A blue giant, it is a variable of the Beta Cepheid type, so now you know.

The other highlight happens next Sunday at 23:21, when the sun edges north over the equator and spring starts, and our hour goes forward a week on Saturday, hough as usual the Americans got in first.

And it seems that daylight saving came in at 2am on Saturday in most of the US and Canada, though in Arizona Hawaii Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa they don’t bother, and stay on standard time all year.  Though when I say Arizona, I’m obviously excluding that part of the state which is under the jurisdiction of the Navajo Nation, which isn’t just Navajo being petulant and a little cussed, it’s probably because the Navajo nation straddles Utah, Colorado and New Mexico as well, which would make it even more confusing. That was more padding by the way.

And that was your night’s sky for the week ending on 167th anniversary of the original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ. Of course he may well have turned up but people thought he was a bit of a nutter as you would and largely ignored him, but probably William Miller was wrong