What's Up In The Sky Now?

---

Neil Armstrong, Astronaut (1930-2012): ”I remember on the trip home on Apollo 11, it suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” (Quote taken from www.spacecenter.org, the Space Center Houston website)

MERCURY - rises before the Sun but will be difficult to see due to the lightening of the morning skies. On the 3rd, it has its greatest western elongation.

VENUS - mid-month we find our evening star near the Pleiades. On the 23rd, Uranus joins Venus & the Pleiades.

EARTH  - Earth Day is April 22nd. The name Earth is about 1,000 years old. All the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. However, the name Earth is a Germanic word, which simply means “the ground.”

MARS - another planet rising shortly before the Sun this month. On the 15th, the red planet rises with Mercury, Saturn & Neptune but all may be difficult to see.

JUPITER - will be in our western sky after sunset and visible all evening, making it a good telescope target. On the 1st, the 4 Galilean moons will all be on one side of the planet and in order of their distance from Jupiter.

SATURN - another planet rising shortly before the Sun, but tough to see early in the month. By month’s end, it rises sooner in the dawn twilight hours and provides us with a small window of viewing.

URANUS - stays near the Pleiades this month.

NEPTUNE - will be near Saturn in the early morning hours before sunrise.

• 01 – FULL moon at 9:11 P.M. CDT
• 09 – 3rd / last quarter
• 17 – NEW moon at 6:51 A.M. CDT
• 23 – 1st quarter

This month’s full moon is the “Pink Moon” as it herald’s the appearance of the ‘moss pink’ or Phlox flower plant, one of the first spring wildflowers. It is also called the Grass Moon (time to get our lawn mowers ready) and the Egg Moon for the arrival of spring and birds beginning to lay their eggs.

On the 2nd, the Moon rises with the bright star Spica in the east-southeast. On the 22nd, the Moon and Jupiter are together in Gemini the Twins constellation in the evening hours. On the 25th, our Moon occults the star Regulus in the early evening.