Sunday: The Eta Aquarid
meteor shower peaks just before dawn on May 5. But since the Moon will be close
to full then and since this meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, you
should start looking before dawn this morning. 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 4:00 a.m. 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://earthsky.org/?p=158833.
Monday: Mother’s Day is
about 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 10:00 p.m.
Tuesday: Read carefully
now. The daytime is bright and the nighttime is dark. Place the Earth and its
atmosphere in fairly close orbit around any star and the daytime rule would still
apply. But put the Earth and its atmosphere in orbit around a star at the
center of a globular cluster and the night sky would never be dark. Astronomers
estimate that the sky would be 10 to 20 times brighter than Earth’s sky when
our Moon is full. One of the brightest globular clusters, M3, is seven fists
above due south at 11:30 p.m. It is nearly one and a half fists to the upper
right of the bright orangeish star Arcturus. It will look like a fuzzy patch in
your binoculars. For a hypothetical view of what the night sky would look like
at the center of this or a similar globular cluster, go to https://tinyurl.com/yyp88w7x.
Wednesday: Tonight’s Full
Moon completes a three month cycle of Supermoons. Each of these Full Moons
correspond to perigee, the smallest Earth-Moon distance, meaning the Moon
appears extra large in the sky. Read all about Supermoon-mania at https://earthsky.org/human-world/what-is-a-supermoon?.
Thursday: At 4:30 a.m.,
bright Jupiter is two fists above the south-southeastern horizon. Saturn is a
half a fist to the left of Jupiter. If you want a binocular or small telescope
challenge, look for M 75. It is a globular cluster of about 100,000 stars just
below the midpoint of a line connecting Jupiter and Saturn. Much easier to spot
will be Mars, a fist and a half above the southeastern horizon.
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 bright bluish star in the
constellation rises at 7:00 p.m. and is three fists above the
south-southeastern horizon at 10:00 p.m.
The positional information
in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire
week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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