It’s a
plane. It’s a bird. No, it’s Supermoon! The biggest and brightest full moon
this year, 14% bigger and 30% brighter! This will lead to very high tides! And
an overuse of exclamation points! The Moon is full on Saturday night meaning
the Earth, Moon, and Sun are in line with each other. That means the Moon and
Sun are both stretching the Earth along the same axis causing the ocean water
in line with the Sun and Moon to be pulled upward. In addition, the moon is at
perigee Saturday night. Peri- means close and –gee refers to the Earth so this
is the day of the month when the moon is closest to the Earth. Tonight is the
closest the full moon gets all year, which accentuates the upward pull on the
water and makes the tides really high. For more information about Supermoon, go
to http://goo.gl/Bv1pe.
Saturday: The
Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. But since this
meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, there will be many more meteors
than in the typical pre-dawn sky throughout the month. Meteor showers are named
after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. The meteors
appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the star Eta.
This point is about one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the east
horizon at 4 a.m. Although the full moon will light the sky, you could be
rewarded with a few bright, fast meteors. The Eta Aquarid meteors slam into the
Earth at about 40 miles per second. They often leave a long trail. The Eta
Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken off Halley’s Comet. For more
information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://meteorshowersonline.com/eta_aquarids.html.
Sunday: Mother’s
Day is a week away. What are you going to get her? Get her a Gem(ma). The star
Gemma, also known as Alphekka, is the brightest star in the constellation
Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. Gemma, Latin for jewel is the central gemstone
for the crown. It is four fists above due east at 10 p.m.
Monday: Antares
is about a half a fist to the lower left of the Moon at 4 a.m.
Tuesday: Venus,
the brightest point of light in the sky, is one and a half fists above the west
horizon at 10 p.m. Owing to their own motion and the Earth’s motion, planets
appear to move with respect to the background stars. Tonight, Venus is about a
pinky thickness to the left of the star at the tip of one horn on Taurus the
bull. Since the Arabs that named many of the stars were quite sensible, they
called the star El Nath, meaning “the butting one”. Watch Venus for the next
few nights as it moves away from El Nath.
Wednesday:
Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is less than a half a fist above
the southwest horizon at 9 p.m. Soon it will be lost in the glare of the Sun.
Thursday: Mars
is four fists above the south-southwest horizon at 10 p.m.
Friday: This
weekend, celebrate Mother’s Day with the big mom of the sky, Virgo. Ancient
Greeks and Romans associated this portion of the sky with their own goddess of
the harvest, either Demeter (Greeks) or Ceres (Roman). Demeter was the mother
of Persephone and Ceres was the mother of Proserpina. According to myth, each
of these daughters was abducted causing their mothers great grief. The first
star in Virgo rises in the afternoon. Spica, the brightest star in the
constellation rises at 6:30 and is two and a half fists above the southeast
horizon at 10 p.m. Saturn is about a half a fist to the upper left of it.
The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. This column is also available online at
http://theellensburgsky.blogspot.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment