Lyrid Meteor Shower And Jesus

Not much movement this week, but we do have a lack lustre meteor shower latter peaking on Friday.

Vega, the "Summer Star," is now rising in the northeast right around the end of. Later in the night as Vega rises higher, look for its dim little constellation Lyra dangling from it toward the lower right.

The radiant of the Lyrid meteor shower is Magnified in the NE.

Which bring us to this week’s high light, The Lyrid meteor shower should peak late on Friday, but it's usually quite weak. The best chance to see an occasional Lyrid will be around midnight, when Lyra is up fairly high but the Moon hasn't yet risen. So look to the North East after 10pm and you may see a few from Wednesday to as late as Monday, but this shower is by no means the best of the year.

Now the planets, for what it’s worth Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter are buried deep in the glare of sunrise (well to the lower left of Venus), pretty well in a wasted conjunction.

Venus (still a respectable magnitude –3.9) is visible very low in the dawn. Look for it above the eastern horizon about 30 minutes before sunrise. But it won’t be showing well if at all.

But we still have Saturn which is still the only planet showing well. After passing through opposition on April 3rd, it glows low in the east-southeast as the stars come out. Saturn rises higher in the southeast during evening and shines highest in the south around midnight. Look for twinkly Spica 12° below it or to its lower left. Don't confuse Saturn with brighter Arcturus 30° to its left or upper left.

A small telescope will always show Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on Batman’s 72^nd birthday. 

And as it's Passion Week here's a picture of Jesus.

The Song Remains The Same

A pretty worthless week again, pretty well exactly the same as last week, and next week for that matter.

We have Venus but barely, it rises just before the sun and is visible for a very limited period and Saturn, it glows low in the east as the sun sets and is about to set in the west as the Sun sets. The planet is pretty well due south at midnight. It’s fairly easy to spot. There are 3 bright stars, one being Saturn, in that area of the sky, Arcturus which is the brightest star in bo o teas which helpfully is written as bootes, is quite a bit higher and further to the east of Saturn and the other is Spica, or Spy ka the brightest star in Virgo which is a little below and to the right of Saturn. So Saturn’s the middle one. And that’s about it.

Now I’m going to waffle about the moon for a bit. Now you may be wandering why Easter is so stupidly late this year. Well it’s the moon’s fault, not that it’s overly contrite about it. Basically Easter, which if you don’t know, is a pretty bizarre myth about an alleged charismatic Jewish carpenter coming back to life on a Sunday around 2000 years ago, it’s not as barking as some of the Norse stuff, but it’s getting there, anyway this bloke was allegedly crucified during the Jewish Passover, which is based on an even more barking great escape myth from around 3500 years ago, there’s book full of this stuff if your interested. Anyway the Passover starts on the first full moon after the spring equinox which is next Monday. So Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. So it’s all a bit primitive. Easter is on the 24^th of April, the 25^th being the latest it can be. And that won’t happen again until 2030, when I’ll be 79. The March full moon this year was on the 19^th two days before the start of Spring. The earliest Easter can be is the 22^nd when the March full moon falls on the spring equinox. Anyway next year it’s much better it’s on then 8^th.  I hope that was clear.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 81^st anniversary of BBC Radio announcing that there is no news on April the 18^th 1930. Be nice if they did it again, though Sky News would find something somewhere, and failing that Keri definitely would.

Darkness At Noon

Another stunning week this week, the moon is just past noon at the moment setting just after sunset tonight and moving further up the western sky over the course of the week, skirting Orion. It’s just below the Pleiades on the 6^th and is just to the right of Aldebaran, the baleful red eye of the bull in Taurus. And speaking of Orion, we will soon lose the hunter as it sinks further into the sun, a sure sigh that that summer’s on the way, his belt is horizontal now.  There are three stars in the belt Alnitak is approximately 800 light years away from Earth and is 100,000 times more luminous than the Sun,  Alnilam is is 375,000 times more luminous than the Sun and is 90,000 times more luminous than the Sun. So they’re all pretty bright.

Orion is very useful as an aid to locating other stars. By extending the line of the Belt south-eastward, Sirius can be found; north-westward, there’s Aldebaran. A line eastward across the two shoulders indicates the direction of Procyon; and a line from Rigel through Betelgeuse points to the twins Castor and Pollux.

And now for the planets, well Saturn anyway, which was at opposition on Sunday; which means that the earth was directly in line with Saturn and the Sun. It glows low in the east-southeast as twilight fades, rises higher in the southeast during evening, and shines highest in the south after midnight. During the evening, look for twinkly Spica 11° below it and brighter Arcturus nearly 30° to its left.

As for the other planets you may get a glimpse of Venus pre dawn in the South East.

But not Mercury which is fading fast and disappearing down into the sunset as it nears inferior conjunction.

Or Mars which remains out of sight behind the glare of the Sun for a while yet, and Jupiter is out of sight in conjunction with the Sun.

Now you may have noticed that the Black Shadow, aka Barbara Simpson, has been quiet of late, well after much clandestine investigation and at no small personal risk I have discovered that she raised a considerable sum smuggling endangered species over the course of the last 6 months and has now invested in am immensely powerful gamma ray space laser, which will be able to take out London, Washington and Ulan Bator at the push of button unless her as yet unspecified demands are met. It’s Sod’s law isn’t it just when you really need James Bond, MGM pulls the plug.

And that was your night sky for the week wending on the 57^th anniversary of the the most boring day since 1900 according to the True Knowledge Answer Engine.

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.