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Touring the Skies By Jim Bonser (jbonser@usa.net)

Ps. 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing about the night skies of April. After all, it was a birthday present more than 50 years ago that got me started with this lifelong interest and hobby. Of course, exactly how many more than 50 years ago that was is not important, only the little telescope and that first view of Saturn, lol. Even more than that though, is the fact that the vernal (spring) equinox is behind us and temperatures are beginning to be in the “acceptable” range more and more consistently. By that I mean that the lows at night stay above 40 degrees. The more years between me and the day I got that birthday telescope, the higher “acceptable” seems to be for some reason. Since I already mentioned Saturn, you might be wondering if Saturn will be visible this month and the answer is, yes, it is, but you have to get out pretty early in the morning to see it. On April 1st, April Fools Day, Saturn rises at about 3:20 AM. The Sun rises just before 6 AM that day. This means the best views of Saturn in early April will be in the predawn skies around 5 AM. If you want to find Saturn, I suggest you go out at least a half hour before sunrise and look to the southeast. If the skies have already begun to brighten you won’t see too many other stars that might confuse you and that will make identifying Saturn that much easier. Saturn is pretty bright this month, shining at about magnitude 0.6 which is brighter by at least a couple of magnitudes than any other nearby stars. Saturn will not get very high this month. At 5:30 AM it will only be about 15 degrees up from the horizon. By the end of the month, it will be about 25 degrees from the horizon and quite a bit farther to the south. If you have an “astronomy calendar” you might notice that several of the planets, including Saturn, are said to be ‘stationary’ this month. For example, Saturn is ‘stationary’ on the 29th and Jupiter is ‘stationary’ on the 10th. This does not mean that these planets have paused in their orbits around the Sun, but instead, from our perspective, they appear to have stopped moving compared to the background stars. It is kind of hard to describe this using only words so if you are interested in understanding it better, I would recommend watching one of the videos about “Retrograde Motion” on YouTube. One that I think does a good job is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nVSzzYCAYk&t=315s It is a little long, but you don’t have to watch the whole thing to get a good understanding of what’s going on. Jupiter is also a morning object this month, but it rises sooner than Saturn, so it is almost due south at 5:30 AM. It is much brighter at -2.3 on the 1st than Saturn. Jupiter is also in the middle of the ‘bulge’ of the center of our Milky Way galaxy so if you go out early, before dawn begins to brighten the sky, you will get to enjoy a beautiful view of our home galaxy at a very pretty angle to the horizon. I suggest you take your DSLR camera on a tripod with as wide a lens on it as you have; a standard 50mm lens will work, but something smaller such as a 14mm would be even better, and take a picture. If you can get to a site where the skies to the south are not lit up by city lights, you might be amazed at how easy it is to capture the Milky Way. Set your camera to take a 20 second exposure at a relatively high ISO setting of 1600 or 3200 if you can and open the f stop wide to let in as much light as possible. The wider the lens, the longer you can keep the shutter open without the stars beginning to trail and become egg shaped because of Earth’s rotation. Experiment and have fun! Venus and Mercury rise just ahead of the Sun this month, Venus at about 5:45 and Mercury at about 6 o’clock. Mars is low in the west in the evening and sets around 11 at midmonth. Lastly, I want to mention that the Lyrid meteor shower peaks on Monday evening, April 22. Unfortunately, the Moon will be just a few days past full, which happens April 19th so spotting meteors will be tough. Nevertheless, let’s hope for warm temperatures and clear skies this April!

Touring the Skies By Jim Bonser (jbonser@usa.net)

Ps. 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing about the night skies of April. After all, it was a birthday present more than 50 years ago that got me started with this lifelong interest and hobby. Of course, exactly how many more than 50 years ago that was is not important, only the little telescope and that first view of Saturn, lol. Even more than that though, is the fact that the vernal (spring) equinox is behind us and temperatures are beginning to be in the “acceptable” range more and more consistently. By that I mean that the lows at night stay above 40 degrees. The more years between me and the day I got that birthday telescope, the higher “acceptable” seems to be for some reason. Since I already mentioned Saturn, you might be wondering if Saturn will be visible this month and the answer is, yes, it is, but you have to get out pretty early in the morning to see it. On April 1st, April Fools Day, Saturn rises at about 3:20 AM. The Sun rises just before 6 AM that day. This means the best views of Saturn in early April will be in the predawn skies around 5 AM. If you want to find Saturn, I suggest you go out at least a half hour before sunrise and look to the southeast. If the skies have already begun to brighten you won’t see too many other stars that might confuse you and that will make identifying Saturn that much easier. Saturn is pretty bright this month, shining at about magnitude 0.6 which is brighter by at least a couple of magnitudes than any other nearby stars. Saturn will not get very high this month. At 5:30 AM it will only be about 15 degrees up from the horizon. By the end of the month, it will be about 25 degrees from the horizon and quite a bit farther to the south. If you have an “astronomy calendar” you might notice that several of the planets, including Saturn, are said to be ‘stationary’ this month. For example, Saturn is ‘stationary’ on the 29th and Jupiter is ‘stationary’ on the 10th. This does not mean that these planets have paused in their orbits around the Sun, but instead, from our perspective, they appear to have stopped moving compared to the background stars. It is kind of hard to describe this using only words so if you are interested in understanding it better, I would recommend watching one of the videos about “Retrograde Motion” on YouTube. One that I think does a good job is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nVSzzYCAYk&t=315s It is a little long, but you don’t have to watch the whole thing to get a good understanding of what’s going on. Jupiter is also a morning object this month, but it rises sooner than Saturn, so it is almost due south at 5:30 AM. It is much brighter at -2.3 on the 1st than Saturn. Jupiter is also in the middle of the ‘bulge’ of the center of our Milky Way galaxy so if you go out early, before dawn begins to brighten the sky, you will get to enjoy a beautiful view of our home galaxy at a very pretty angle to the horizon. I suggest you take your DSLR camera on a tripod with as wide a lens on it as you have; a standard 50mm lens will work, but something smaller such as a 14mm would be even better, and take a picture. If you can get to a site where the skies to the south are not lit up by city lights, you might be amazed at how easy it is to capture the Milky Way. Set your camera to take a 20 second exposure at a relatively high ISO setting of 1600 or 3200 if you can and open the f stop wide to let in as much light as possible. The wider the lens, the longer you can keep the shutter open without the stars beginning to trail and become egg shaped because of Earth’s rotation. Experiment and have fun! Venus and Mercury rise just ahead of the Sun this month, Venus at about 5:45 and Mercury at about 6 o’clock. Mars is low in the west in the evening and sets around 11 at midmonth. Lastly, I want to mention that the Lyrid meteor shower peaks on Monday evening, April 22. Unfortunately, the Moon will be just a few days past full, which happens April 19th so spotting meteors will be tough. Nevertheless, let’s hope for warm temperatures and clear skies this April!