The Sky This Week 2003 9-15 April 2003
The Moon brightens the evening skies this week. Full Moon occurs on the 16th at 3:36 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Look for Luna to the northwest of bright Jupiter on the evening of the 10th. On the following night she’s east of the giant planet. On the 12th she stands a few degrees above Regulus, heart of Leo, the Lion. By the week’s end she’s in the vicinity of the blue-tinged star Spica.
April’s Full Moon is known as the Grass Moon or Egg Moon in popular lore, and this year it is also the Paschal Moon, which is the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox. The Jewish observance of the Passover begins on the following evening, and Christians celebrate Easter on the following Sunday, April 20th. All of the ìmoveable feastsî in both faiths are thus keyed to this important astronomical event, and both commemorate Earthly events that took place some 2000 years ago.
The fleet planet Mercury puts in his best evening appearance for the year this week. He reaches greatest elongation east of the Sun on the 16th, when he’ll set about an hour and a half after the Sun. Look for him in the early evening, 20 minutes to half an hour after sunset in the western sky. At this time he’ll be about 10 degrees above the horizon and he’ll shine somewhat brighter than Saturn. A pair of binoculars might be handy for spotting him, but once you’ve located him he should be easy to follow for the next several nights.
Saturn continues to slowly creep eastward between the stars that form the ìhornsî of Taurus, the Bull. On the evenings of the 9th and 10th the ringed planet passes just north of the famous Crab Nebula. Saturn and the remnant of the supernova of the year 1054 should appear in the same low-power telescopic field. Back in January Saturn passed right over the nebula, but this time he’ll give it a wider berth. He won’t be back in this part of the sky for nearly 30 years!
Jupiter is also headed eastward, drifting away from the Beehive star cluster in Cancer, the Crab. Binocular observers can have a very nice view of the giant planet separating from the cluster over the course of the week. Telescopic observers may be a little confused this week as Jupiter and its bevy of moons pass close to a faint star. The star is almost perfectly aligned to the orbital planes of the Galilean moons, and from the evenings of the 9th through the 15th it will appear as a fifth faint ìmoonî in the Jovian system.
Mars spends the week drifting between the bright stars of the teapot-shaped asterism of Sagittarius and the dimmer stars that make up the obscure constellation of Capricornus, the Sea-Goat. The red planet is beginning to become conspicuous in the pre-dawn sky, shining at a respectable zero magnitude. By the late summer he’ll be the brightest object in the night sky, so be sure to follow his progress over the next few months.
