So we’ve arrived at April. Allegedly, nights are growing warmer, and you can take off at least some of your layers while stargazing – but there is a tradeoff here, actually a couple of tradeoffs. For one thing the nights, while getting warmer, are also getting shorter. Now it’s not dark enough for decent stargazing until after 8:30 p.m.
Another tradeoff for the warmer stargazing is that the best and brightest stars and constellations of the year, in my opinion, are starting to head for the celestial exits. The mighty constellation Orion the Hunter and his gang of bright constellations are a little farther to the west every night at the start of dark. The Earth, in its perpetual orbit around the sun, is gradually turning away from the great stars of winter. By about mid to late May they’ll be pretty much gone from our evening skies, not to be seen in the evening sky again until this fall.
Don’t get me wrong here. Even though the very best of the night sky is checking out in the west, there are still many treasures in the rest of the heavens. Over in the high southeastern sky, look for a backward question mark that outlines the heart, chest and head of Leo the Lion. The semi-bright star Regulus, Leo’s heart, is at the bottom of the question mark. To the lower left of the question mark is a small but distinct triangle that makes up the lion’s butt and tail.
To the upper right of Leo is the lovely planet Saturn. Oh, how I love steering my giant telescopes at the ringed wonder of our solar system. What can I say about Saturn? It has that beautiful ring system, more than 130,000 miles wide but only about 10 to 20 miles thick.
If your scope is powerful enough, you can also see tiny little “stars” that are some of Saturn’s moons. The brightest one is Titan, the one that the Huygens spacecraft landed on a few years ago. One of the biggest joys I have at my star parties is showing folks Saturn through my big telescopes and hearing the oohs and aahs. I’ve been accused of having a projector with a slide of Saturn rigged to the eyepiece.
That really bright star that practically knocks you over in the low western sky in the evening is the planet Venus. It’s so bright because it’s only 117 million miles away, and its heavy cloud cover bounces a lot of reflected sunlight our way. Unlike Saturn, it’s not much to look at because of its perpetual cloud cover. All you really see through your scope is bright ovalish orb.
By the way, the moon, the enemy of stargazing, is full or nearly full the first week of April. That’ll really throw a lot of unwanted light in the sky and make constellations a little harder to find. By next week, though, the moon will be less full and will rise much later in the evening, leaving us with darker, friendlier skies.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the new book “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and on his Web site, www.lynchandthestars.com.
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