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Star Light, Star Bright

By Lewis McCool �2010

In History

May 5, 1961 – Alan Shepard becomes America’s first man in space, aboard his Mercury capsule “Freedom 7.” The suborbital flight lasted 15 minutes and reached an altitude of 115 miles.

May 11, 1918 – Birth date of Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman, an enthusiastic educator, famous for his theories of quantum mechanics, practical jokes and bongo playing.

May 17, 1835 – Birth date of British astronomer Sir J. Norman Lockyer, known as the father of archaeoastronomy for his studies of Stonehenge, Egyptian pyramids and medieval cathedrals. He is also credited with the discovery of helium in 1868 during spectroscopic studies of the sun.

May 18, 1969 – The Apollo 10 crew, Thomas Stafford, John Young and Gene Cernan, lifts off for the moon to rehearse the lunar landing that would be accomplished two months later by Apollo 11.

May 21, 1961 – President John F. Kennedy delivers his speech that launched the nation on a race to the moon with the Soviet Union.

May 28, 1930 – Birth date of American astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake. He founded SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and devised an equation that attempts to calculate the number of inhabited planets.

May 28, 1959 – The U.S. launches the first primates into space, rhesus monkeys Abel and Baker, on a suborbital flight.

MOON PHASES

Last quarter: May 5, 10:15 p.m.

New: May 13, 7:04 p.m.

First quarter: May 20, 5:43 p.m.

Full: May 27, 5:07 p.m. (Flower Moon)

Brilliant Venus continues as the "evening star" during May. In olden days, the evening star was called Hesperus. Shining at magnitude minus 3.9, Venus/Hesperus can't be missed in the west-northwest after 9 p.m. It climbs a bit higher throughout the month, moving from Taurus into Gemini.

Dusk ends around 9:45 p.m. early in the month, and Venus can be seen quite near the horizon. Look for Sirius, the night sky's brightest star, in Canis Major, low in the southwest about 50 degrees east of Venus. Another bright star, Capella, in Auriga, hovers above and to the right on Venus. Betelgeuse in Orion and Procyon in Canis Minor are the other bright stars in the area. The Gemini twins, Pollux and Castor, are high above Venus.

With sunset later each night, Sirius will quickly disappear in twilight with Betelgeuse to follow by midmonth. But high above Venus and the Gemini twins will be rusty, red Mars. It starts the month in Cancer shining at magnitude 0.7 but moves into Leo midmonth and fades to 0.9. By the end of May, Mars will be just 3 degrees west of the star Regulus.

Virgo is next door to Leo and, for now, home to Saturn. Shining at magnitude 0.8, the ringed planet is nicely situated for viewing until the wee hours of the morning. If you're observing through a small scope, you may have trouble spotting the rings. Right now, they appear nearly edge-on from our perspective.

The bright star Arcturus, in Bo�tes, is about 40 degrees northeast of Saturn. Follow that track another 40 degrees, through the tiny "C" or "U" constellation Corona Borealis into Hercules and you'll be in the vicinity of the Hercules Star Cluster, one of the finest globular clusters in the sky. It's well positioned for viewing around midnight and all summer long. It's easy to spot in binoculars once you know where to look, and it's a great telescopic object.

Early in the month, Jupiter can be seen near the eastern horizon before sunrise. Quite bright at magnitude minus 2.1, it will gradually climb higher in Pisces. Binoculars or a small scope will reveal Jupiter's four Galilean moons, even in twilight.

Just last month, Mercury, the innermost planet, was hanging around the western horizon after sunset. Late this month the rocky representative of the fleet-footed messenger of the gods can be found before dawn near the eastern horizon. It reaches its greatest western elongation (apparent distance from the sun) on May 25. Look for it about 7 degrees above the eastern horizon around 5:45 a.m. Binoculars will help.

The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the morning of May 5 and can be fairly productive. Unfortunately this year a last-quarter moon will interfere throughout the shower's peak. Only the brightest "shooting stars" will be visible. Next year's event should be much better.

The shower occurs as Earth crosses the orbital path of Halley's Comet. Tiny debris particles shed by the comet linger in its orbit and occasionally impact Earth's atmosphere as we cross the path.