Thursday April 25 to Thursday May 2

The Last Quarter Moon is Wednesday, May 1. Jupiter is lost in the western twilight sky. Comet 12P Pons-Brooks is visible in binoculars and will progressively climb higher over the week. In the morning Mars and Saturn are high in the morning sky with Mercury and Venus below. Venus is barely visible low in the morning twilight below the line up. Occultation of sigma Scorpii in the morning of the 27th. 

The Last Quarter Moon is Wednesday, May 1.

Evening sky on Saturday, April 27 as seen from Adelaide at 18:33 ACST (60 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).   Jupiter is lost in the twilight. Comet 12P is close to the stars nu and lambda Tau.

While the comet is a reasonable bright magnitude 4.5, it is still not far from the horizon. You will definitely need binoculars. Over the week the comet will climb higher above the horizon and into darker skies, but becomes dimmer as it rises. Spotters charts are here.

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes after sunset).

Evening sky on Monday, April 29 as seen from Adelaide at 18:31 ACST (60 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).   Comet 12P is close to the star nu Tau (the inset is the approximate binocular view of them).

While the comet is a reasonable bright magnitude 4.5, it is still not far from the horizon. You will definitely need binoculars. Over the week the comet will climb higher into darker skies and. Spotters charts are here.

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes after sunset).

Morning sky on Saturday, April 27 as seen from Adelaide at 06:08 ACST, (45 minutes before sunrise, click to embiggen). Mars and Saturn are pulling apart as Saturn climbs higher. Mercury heads higher in the morning and is now visible to the unaided eye. Venus is now very low on the horizon and difficult to see.

 

 

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (45 minutes before sunrise).

 

North-west morning sky on Saturday, April 27 as seen from Adelaide at 02:02 ACST. The Moon is just about to cover (occult) the bright star Sigma Scorpii.

 

The inset shows the moon at 3:32 ACST as the moon moves off Sigma Scorpii.

 

 

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time.

Whole sky on Saturday, Saturday, April 27 as seen from Adelaide at 19:03 ACST, 90 minutes after sunset (click to embiggen).

Orion is low in the north-west. Bright Sirius is still dominant in  the north-western sky. Between the bright star Canopus and the Southern Cross are a wealth of binocular objects to discover. As the Moon wanes , the fainter clusters will be visible again.

 

 

   

 Elsewhere in Australia will see a similar view at the equivalent time (90 minutes after sunset).

 

 

Mercury climbs higher into the twilight.

Venus is very low in the morning twilight, and is difficult to see.

Mars is rising in the morning twilight. 

Jupiter is lost in the twilight sky.

Saturn climbs higher in the morning twilight.

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/