Saturday: This week is International Dark Sky Week. Check out the schedule of events at https://idsw.darksky.org/, including many presentations that are broadcast live so you can interact with the presenter. But that doesn’t mean that we can ignore our obligation to minimize stray light for the next 51 weeks. Lights that are aimed upward illuminate the atmosphere and obscure dim objects. Having too much light shining where it shouldn’t is considered light pollution. And just like other forms of pollution, light pollution can be hazardous to our health and the health of other animals. That’s right. Harmful. Watch this National Geographic video for more information: https://youtu.be/V_A78zDBwYE.
Sunday: The waning crescent moon is just above the
east-southeastern horizon at 5:30 a.m. Saturn is a half a fist held upright and
at arm’s length to the upper right of the moon.
Monday: “The crow rises in the southeast,” said spy number
one. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize that code,” replied spy number two. Spy one
exclaimed, “That’s because it’s not a code, you idiot. I’m talking about the
constellation Corvus the crow.” This very bad spy movie dialogue is to remind
you that Corvus had a very bad life. According to one myth, Corvus brought the
god Apollo the news that his girlfriend was seeing someone else. In a classic
case of punishing the messenger, Apollo turned the formerly beautifully colored
crow black. The box shaped Corvus is one fist above the southeastern horizon at
9:00 p.m.
Tuesday: At 9:00 p.m., very bright Venus is two and a half
fists above the western horizon and Mars is five fists above the
west-southwestern horizon.
Wednesday: There is an annular solar eclipse in Southeast
Asia and Australia in the middle of the day April 20 local time but about 9:00
tonight Pacific Daylight Time. In this case “annular” does not mean yearly
occurrence. Annular refers to the ring shape of the Sun. The Moon will be
directly between the Earth and the Sun. But it will be relatively far from the
Earth meaning it will not appear large enough to fully block the Sun. If you
want to read about the eclipse, see a simulation, or watch a live stream, go to
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2023-april-20.
This is one of my favorite astronomy websites.
Thursday: Do people think you have a magnetic personality?
The star Cor Caroli understands how you feel. Cor Caroli has one of the
strongest magnetic fields among main sequence stars similar to our Sun. This
strong magnetic field is thought to produce large sunspots that cause the
brightness of Cor Caroli to vary. Cor Caroli is nearly straight overhead at
midnight.
Friday: Remember the old saying: April showers bring…
meteors. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this week, with the peak of the peak
occurring tonight and tomorrow night before midnight. The meteors appear to
come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the
constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the
east-northeast horizon at midnight tonight and close to straight overhead near
dawn. The best time to observe the shower is between 11:00 p.m. and moonrise at
about 3:00 a.m. Typically, this is one of the least interesting major meteor
showers of the year, with 10-20 bright, fast meteors per hour. However, it is
also one of the most unpredictable. As recently as 1982, there were 90 meteors
visible during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has
historical interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese
records say “stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. As your mother
might say, dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment.
Meteors are tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For
more information, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=158735.
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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