<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Greetings sky watchers – let us kick off May with a run down of things to look for in the morning sky.\u00a0 <\/span>Saturn<\/b> can be found in <\/span>Aquarius, the Water Bearer <\/b>in the ESE to SE as dawn brightens.\u00a0 Shining at +0.9 magnitude, a telescopic view would show the rings tipped just 8.0 degrees from edgewise.\u00a0 On May 13, a 41 percent <\/span>crescent Moon<\/b> will appear near Saturn. \u00a0 It may be possible to see the Rings of Saturn cast a shadow on the WNW limb of the planet with a small telescope on May 28.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The recently emerged <\/span>Jupiter<\/b> will appear very low north of east (mag -2.1).\u00a0 On May 17, the 6 percent Moon will occult Jupiter, but one will need to be west of a line stretching from Baton Rouge, LA to Great Falls, MT.\u00a0 The occultation will occur during daylight hours for those east of this line.\u00a0 <\/span>Mercury<\/b> will be located to the lower left of Jupiter and will become more visible as it brightens from a faint +1.6 (May 17) to +0.4 by the end of the month.\u00a0 Mercury will reach its greatest elongation (25 degrees west of the Sun) on May 29.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Turning our attention to the evening sky, <\/span>Venus<\/b> will start the month at a brilliant -4.1 magnitude and increase to -4-4 by the end of the month.\u00a0 To say it will dominate the western sky is an understatement.\u00a0 Due to its brightness, one should be able to see Venus between 43 and 45 degrees to the upper left of the setting <\/span>Sun.<\/b>\u00a0 As the Sun sets, observers will find this an excellent time to track the changing appearance of our closest neighboring planet as the disk grows from 17 to 23 arcseconds and the phase shrinks from about two thirds illuminated to about one half.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Mars<\/b> will also be a faint mag +1.4 located in <\/span>Gemini, the Twins.<\/b>\u00a0 This places it about 26 degrees to the upper left of Venus (remember, extending your thumb and little finger in the traditional surfer\u2019s salute (or perhaps a \u2018call me\u2019 gesture) at arm\u2019s length spans about 25 degrees of the sky).\u00a0 Mars will be shifting about 0.6 degrees against the background stars during May, compared to a 1.0 degree shift for Venus.\u00a0 Look for the Moon to pass Venus and Mars on May 28 & 29, respectively.\u00a0 The <\/span>Red Planet<\/b> will reach aphelion, or its farthest distance from the Sun, on May 30 putting it at a distance of 1.666 a.u. from the Sun.\u00a0 An a.u., or astronomical unit, is the distance between the Sun and the Earth.\u00a0 The a.u. is used as a shorthand method to measure distances in the solar system rather than writing out millions and millions of miles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The month will begin with a <\/span>Full Moon<\/b> on May 5, followed by the <\/span>Last Quarter <\/b>(May 13),<\/span><\/p>\n the <\/span>New Moon <\/b>(May 19), and the <\/span>Young Crescent Moon <\/b>low in the WNW one hour after sunset on May 20.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This month\u2019s\u00a0 highlighted historical astrological event took place on May 17, 1902.\u00a0 Archaeologist Spyridon Stais noticed an inscription on an artifact that had been recovered from an underwater wreck off the coast of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea.\u00a0 Philologist Albert Rehm studied the object and in 1905, he determined the inscription included the numbers 19, 76, and 223 which helped him uncover exactly what this mysterious object was.\u00a0 Rehm proposed this artifact, now known as the Antikythera Mechanism, was an astronomical calculator whose origins remain uncertain, but could have been created between 200 BCE and 870 BCE.\u00a0 The device was not kept intact as it was split into 82 separate pieces while being studied at the Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece.\u00a0 It has taken generations of mathematicians, astronomers, and historians to sort out this puzzle, but it is now viewed as the oldest known astronomical mechanical calculator ever discovered.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 As long as Venus is still the star of the show, we will revisit the 1980s and Banarama’s fun take on the Shocking Blue tune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Greetings sky watchers – let us kick off May with a run down of things to look for in the morning sky.\u00a0 Saturn can be found in Aquarius, the Water Bearer in the ESE to SE as dawn brightens.\u00a0 Shining at +0.9 magnitude, a telescopic view would show the rings tipped just 8.0 degrees […]<\/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-2818","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\/2818","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=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2821,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions\/2821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}