Moon
Last Quarter 3rd 02:58 -- 11:45
New 10th 06:02 -- 20:25
First Quarter 18th
11:44 -- 02:30 New 10th 06:02 -- 20:25
Full 25th 20:21 -- 05:19
Spring at last, at least civil spring, if not actual, but it brings lighter and shorter nights, though
hopefully warmer. I can't say that this winter has been exceptionally cold
though there were cold spots; it'll stay in memory for the lack of clear skies,
and this applies to the whole of last autumn and summer too.
There will be a Partial Lunar Eclipse on the night of the 25th, but it will only be the Penumbra of the Earth's shadow that passes across the Moon, so it may be difficult to notice it. It will hardly reduce the full Moon glare at all. All will happen an hour either side of 9pm.
There will be a Partial Lunar Eclipse on the night of the 25th, but it will only be the Penumbra of the Earth's shadow that passes across the Moon, so it may be difficult to notice it. It will hardly reduce the full Moon glare at all. All will happen an hour either side of 9pm.
Planets
During April, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Uranus and Neptune, that is all
but Jupiter and Saturn, will be gathered round the Sun for most of the month.
They'll rise with it all month, so will be in dawn twilight and not easily seen, then all will set before it in the evenings, all month, so all will be morning
objects only, with the exception of Jupiter and Saturn. Not a good apparition for
them at all.
Mercury isn't easily available this month till towards the last
week, though it can be seen from about the 19th, rising half an hour before the
Sun, but in bright twilight of course. It does get easier with the passing of
the days, but only by moving further south from the Sun rather than rising
earlier, and is certainly not helped by the very bright dawn twilight, all
month.
Venus and Mars stay close to the Sun all month, so aren't safe to
search for.
Jupiter is high in the south west at dusk on the 1st, bright and
clearly the King of the Planets, at mag -2.3 and 39 arcsec, sat between the
Pleiades and the Hyades. Always good to see but beginning its decline for this
apparition. It will set at 1:45am on the 1st. On the 30th it will be up at dusk
but well to the west of south and will set by 22:45pm.
As Jupiter leaves the sky, stage right, Saturn comes on, stage left.
Rising on the 1st, at 10:15pm, at mag +0.2 and19 arcsec, at the top of Libra.
It will set in the WSW about 7am in dawn twilight. At the end of the month it
will rise at 8:30pm in the ESE, about the same size but a bit brighter at mag
0.1. It will therefore be available pretty much all night for the month,
getting better each night. See if you can catch 7 of its moons.
Uranus is too close to the Sun till the last week of the month as it
begins to pull away from it in separation rather than time. So it'll rise only
40 mins before the Sun, but 27° further south, again like Mercury, in bright
dawn twilight, so hardly worth the effort.
Neptune is in the same area of sky as the others, but further south,
so easier on the eye as you'll have to know where it is and use binoculars to
catch its tiny 2 arcsec and mag +8 orb. By the end of the month it will have
stretched its distance from the Sun to 65° and will rise an hour and a half
before it, so will be safer to search for, in the south east among the stars of
Aquarius. But, and a big but, all this will be during dawn twilight, so not as
easy to see at all.
All in all, not a good month for the planets other than Jupiter and
Saturn. But with Saturn coming on stage, almost anything can be forgiven.
Meteor Showers
The Lyrids are worth a watch, peaking on the 22nd, not many, 18 at
the top of the sky, but bright. Coming from the Lyra area, rising after 8pm,
the Moon is full, but thankfully more than 90° away to the south.
Comets
Comet C/2011 L4 Panstarrs continues it's flight northwards, getting fainter and fainter. Out of naked eye visual range and binocular range too, but within photographic range, so have a try at it Where? On the 1st it can be seen (sought, I've still no faith),
approaching the Andromeda spiral, by the 4th and 5th, it'll be alongside it, within 2.5°. On the 12th, it'll be getting into the disc of the Milky Way, a week later it will be in the thick of the galaxy's disc in Cassiopeia, beginning to struggle to be seen at mag 7 , and by the end of April it will have gone through the thick part of the Milky Way and just over the border into Cepheus at mag 7.5. All this in the north, so we'll be looking through the murky skies over Doncaster.