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.