.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Monday, May 03, 2021

 

Thursday May 6 to Thursday May 13

The New Moon is Wednesday, May 12. Saturn and Jupiter are readily visible in the morning sky. On the 6th the crescent  Moon forms a line with Saturn and Jupiter. On the 13th the thin crescent Moon forms a line with Venus and Mercury low in the evening twilight. On the 10th Mars is less than half a finger-width from epsilon geminorum. The mornings of the 7th to 9th are the best time to see the eta Aquariid meteor shower in Australia.

The New Moon is Wednesday, May 12. The Moon is at apogee, when it is furthest from the Earth, at this time.

Morning sky on Saturday
May 8 showing the eastern sky as seen from Adelaide at 5:31am ACST (90 minutes before sunrise). Saturn and Jupiter form a line in the morning sky with the crescent Moon below Jupiter.
 
The insets shows the telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn at this time. The Jovian Moons Callisto and Ganymede are exceptionally close.
  
Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes before sunrise), click to embiggen.
 
Whole sky at 18:59 ACST  (90 minutes after sunset), on Saturday, May 8 as seen from 
Adelaide
 
 
 

  

Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset). click to embiggen.

Evening twilight sky on Thursday May 13 looking west as seen from Adelaide at 17:49 ACST (30 minutes after sunset). Venus is just above the horizon, not far from the crescent Moon with Mercury above. You will need a clear level horizon and probably binoculars to see Venus.




Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time (30 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).

Evening sky at19:06 ACST (90 minutes after sunset), on Monday May 10 facing north-west as seen from Adelaide.

Mars is less than half a finger-width from Mebsuta, epsilon geminorum.


 
 
 
Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time 
The north-eastern Horizon as seen from Adelaide at 4:30 am ACST, the eta Aquariid radiant is marked with a starburst. Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (click to embiggen). 
 
The eta Aquariid meteor shower, which is produced by the debris from Halley’s Comet, is best seen on the mornings of the 7th, 8th and 9th from 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM

The eta Aquarids are debris from Halleys comet. the best time to see the eta Aquariid meteor shower between around 4 and 5 am, when Aquarius is fairly high above the horizon and the crescent Moon is low. You may see between a meteor every 3-4  minutes at this time. The radiant of the shower is about five hand-spans up from the eastern horizon, and three hand-spans to the left of due east at 4:30 am (see diagram above). More details and rate predictions for different cities here.
  
Mercury is now visible in the evening twilight. On the 13th the thin crescent Moon forms a line with Venus and Mercury low in the twilight, best seen half an hour after sunset with a level, unobstructed horizon, you may need binoculars to see Venus.

Venus is visible low in the twilight from around the 10th on.  

Mars is readily visible in the evening sky above the north-western horizon in the early evening. Mars is in Gemini. On the 6th Mars is just within binocular distance of the open cluster M35. You will need binoculars to see this as although M35 is technically unaided eye visible, low altitude makes the cluster too hard to see. On the 10th Mars is less than half a finger-width from Mebsuta, epsilon geminorum. 
   
Jupiter is climbing higher in the morning sky forming a line with Saturn. On the 6th the crescent Moon forms a line with Saturn and Jupiter.
 
 Saturn is climbing higher in the morning sky and is now rising just before midnight. It is still best in the morning sky and is easily seen above Jupiter . On the 6th the crescent Moon forms a line with Saturn and Jupiter. 
 
Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.


 

Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to the current time.

Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.

Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/ 



Labels:


Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?