Saturday: The moon is hanging out with seven sisters this evening. The open star cluster called the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, is about a half a fist to the right of the waxing crescent moon and about four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the western horizon at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday: Jupiter and Mercury are neighbors, just above due
west at 7:45 p.m. Jupiter is on the left, slightly higher and brighter than
Mercury. Jupiter is moving towards the Sun in the sky and Mercury is moving away
from it, meaning it will be slightly easier to spot over the next two weeks.
Monday: Mars is less than a half a fist to the upper left of
the moon in the southwestern sky this evening.
Tuesday: Venus is the bright point of light two fists above
due west at 8:30 p.m. Uranus is about a thumb width to the upper left Venus.
You’ll need binoculars to see Uranus. Look at this portion of the sky with
binoculars for the next few nights. Venus will move upward a lot in your
binocular field of view. Tomorrow night, Uranus will be almost directly to the
left of Venus. By Thursday night, Uranus will be to the lower left of Venus.
Note that Uranus has moved very slightly upward with respect to the background
stars. Venus appears to move a lot more than Uranus because Venus is so much
closer to Earth.
Wednesday: Two of the best, and certainly the most
available, “tools” for viewing the night sky are your eyes. Your eyes let you
see the entire sky in just a few seconds. Your eyes can read star charts,
decipher astronomy apps, and spot meteors while your friend is still setting up
her tripod. Your naked eyes are not as effective as gathering light. They work
well when the light source is comparatively bright and the detailed features
are fairly large. It’s best to practice on a special Solar System body known
scientifically as the Magnificent Optical Object of Nearness. Artists such as
Jan van Eyck and Leonardo da Vinci produced the first realistic naked eye
depictions of the Magnificent Optical Object of Nearness. This week you can use
your own eyes to observe evidence of violent collisions and ancient lava flows.
For more information on what to observe on the Magnificent Optical Object of
Nearness, better known as the Moon, go to http://goo.gl/JLhraO.
Thursday: Signs of spring: flower buds, leaves on the trees,
beetle larvae, and the Spring Triangle. The bright stars Regulus, Arcturus, and
Spica rise as evening starts. By 10:00 p.m., Regulus is five and a half fists
above the south-southeastern horizon, Arcturus is two and a half fists above
due east, and Spica is one fist above the east-southeastern horizon. For more
on the Spring Triangle, go to http://tiny.cc/ep7vtz.
Friday: The Milky Way is pretty easy to spot in the early
spring sky. Just look up. Everything you see in the sky, including that bird
that just startled you, is in the Milky Way. But, even the path of densely
packed stars in the plane of our galaxy that look like a river of milk is easy
to find. Face due west at 9:00 p.m. in a fairly open area. The fuzzy Milky Way
path starts due south, moves upward past the bright star Sirius, near Mars,
towards the bright star Capella, through W-shaped Cassiopeia and down to due
north where the bright star Deneb sits just above the horizon.
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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