<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The past several AstroCals, our poor companion seems to have gotten short shrift as the <\/span>Full Moon<\/b> has taken place very late in the last few months.\u00a0 We will rectify that situation by starting this edition with the May Lunar events.\u00a0 Not only will this month\u2019s Full Moon take place late in the month (May 25 to be exact), it will be a so-called \u201cSupermoon\u201d.\u00a0 Supermoons are those Full Moons that happen closest to perigee, or the closest the Moon comes to Earth.\u00a0 This <\/span>syzygy <\/span><\/i>(the technical name for the same event) will mark the second closest Moon of the year when it will be 222,023 miles from <\/span>Earth.\u00a0 <\/b>A brief <\/span>total lunar eclipse<\/b> will be visible in the early morning hours of May 26, but only for the western U.S. (the Moon will have already dropped below the horizon for those of us in the eastern part of the country).\u00a0 More details and links about the eclipse can be found on Abrams Planetarium\u2019s <\/span>Extra Content Page <\/b>abramsplanetarium.org\/msta\/ .<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hopping back to the beginning of the month, the <\/span>Waning Quarter & Crescent Moon<\/b> will dominate the SE sky in the 1 \u00bc hours before sunrise.\u00a0 The <\/span>Young Crescent<\/b> Moon will be visible with <\/span>Venus<\/b> in the WNW 40 minutes after sunset on May 12 with the <\/span>First Quarter<\/b> coming on May 19.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Speaking of planets, <\/span>Venus<\/b> will be shining brightly at a magnitude of -4 (the smaller the number, the brighter the object) and will be easy to spot in the WNW in the hour after sunset all month long.\u00a0 Venus is the third brightest natural object seen in our sky after the <\/span>Sun<\/b> and the <\/span>Moon <\/b>and is named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty.\u00a0 Let us also not forget that the name can be remembered as the song title of hits by both <\/span>Frankie Avalon <\/b>(1963), <\/span>Shocking Blue <\/b>(1969), and <\/span>Bananarama <\/b>(1986), the later two being different versions of the same tune.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Mercury<\/b> will be in a favorable position to be seen just above Venus.\u00a0 At the beginning of May, it will start at a bright -1.1 magnitude but it will rapidly fade to +1.5 by the 24th.\u00a0 <\/span>Mars<\/b> will appear even dimmer at +1.6 to +1.7 but being higher in the sky, it should be easier to spot in dark sky locations.\u00a0 The Abrams Sky Calendar provides the following detailed viewing instructions for this months \u2018viewing challenge:\u00a0 \u201cUsing binoculars, track Mars\u2019 motion of 0.6 degrees per day as it passes by 3rd-mag. Stars in <\/span>Gemini<\/b> on Apr. 28 – May 2, May 9 and 23, and forms noteworthy configurations with brighter <\/span>Pollux <\/b>(+1.2) and <\/span>Castor<\/b> (+1.6) on May 15, 31, and June 7.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Jupiter<\/b>, our nearest <\/span>Gas Giant<\/b> neighbor, will dominate the morning sky.\u00a0 At the start of May, it will rise three hours ahead of the Sun in the eastern sky.\u00a0 The rising time will increase to four hours ahead of sunrise by May 31.\u00a0 As a bright morning star, Jupiter will increase in magnitude from -2.2 to -2.4 during May.\u00a0 <\/span>Saturn<\/b> can also be viewed in the morning sky in the SE, slightly above and to the \u2018right\u2019 of Jupiter.\u00a0 The <\/span>Ringed Planet <\/b>(at least the one ringed planet whose rings we can see from Earth with a moderate sized telescope) will be three mags fainter than Jupiter and will brighten slightly from +0.7 to +0.6 during the month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A visit to the previously mentioned Extra Content Page at Abrams Planetarium will provide you with information about conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn with background stars.\u00a0 The site will also help you track J & S\u2019s impending retrograde motions and notes about May\u2019s rare events involving Jupiter\u2019s moons and 3-D aspects of Saturn\u2019s Rings.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information can be found on the their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a> or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Venus by any other name . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The past several AstroCals, our poor companion seems to have gotten short shrift as the Full Moon has taken place very late in the last few months.\u00a0 We will rectify that situation by starting this edition with the May Lunar events.\u00a0 Not only will this month\u2019s Full Moon take place late in the month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2166,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/2166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}