Tuesday, May 02, 2023
Thursday May 4 to Thursday May 11
The Full Moon is Saturday, May 6, with a penumbral Lunar eclipse on the morning of the 6th. Saturn is climbing in the morning sky. Venus is prominent in the evening twilight and starts the week making a triangle with Elnath and Zeta Taurii, the stars that make the horns of the Bull. Bright Mars forms a triangle with the bright stars Castor and Pollux and on the10th they form a line. Eta Aquariids meteor shower starts and peaks on the weekend.
The Full Moon is Saturday, May 6, with a penumbral Lunar eclipse in the morning .
Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes before sunrise).
Evening sky on Tuesday, May 9 as seen from Adelaide at 18:23ACST, (60 minutes after sunset, click
to embiggen). Venus is close to the open cluster M25. The binocular view is shown in the inset.
Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes after sunset).
Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset).
The eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the late evening/early morning of 5-7 May in Australia, however the rising Moon reduces the rates on these dates, the 5th and 6th are a reasonable nights for viewing with about a meteor every six minutes. For more details see my eta Aqauriid viewing page.
Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time.
On the morning of May 6 there is a penumbral eclipse of the Moon, where the Moon glides through the outer segment of the shadow cast by Earth. There will be a faint, but visible, darkening of the Moons northern regions.
Unfortunately, this all occurs in the early morning, so you will need to get up in the early hours to see it. However, to eclipse aficionados the subtle darkening of the Moons bright light to a pearly glow is quiet beautiful. It is also the morning of the eta Aquariid meteor shower peak, so you can combine the two events if your are careful about your night vision.
All of Australia will see this penumbral eclipse from start to maximum. For the East Coast Moon the eclipse begins at 1:12 am AEST, maximum eclipse is at 3:23 am , the eclipse ends at 5:34 am.
For the Central states the eclipse begins at 12:42 am ACST, maximum eclipse is at 2:53 am , the eclipse ends at 5:04 am .
For Western Australia the eclipse begins at 11:23 pm AWST on the 5th, maximum eclipse is at 1:23 am, the eclipse ends at 3:34 am.
Between the bright star
Canopus and the Southern Cross are another wealth of binocular objects to
discover. The full moon washes many of these beauties out.
Elsewhere in Australia will see a similar view at the equivalent time (90 minutes after sunset).
Mercury returns to the morning twilight, but will be almost impossible to see.
Venus climbs higher in the twilight and forms a line with the stars Elnath and zeta Taurii.
Mars forms a triangle with the bright stars Castor and Pollux.
Jupiter is now lost in the twilight.
Saturn climbs higher in the morning skies.
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: weekly sky
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