Any excuse for a star party

Talk about an excuse for a party! Recently our small group of skywatchers witnessed the triple pass of the ISS space station, the space shuttle Endeavour (mission STS-123) and the Jules Verne space station resupply vessel or ATV (automated transfer vehicle) as it is also known.

The three tiny dots appeared suddenly in the southeastern sky one after the other traveling to the east on the evening of Tuesday, March 25. The dimmest of the three, the Jules Verne, was mostly hidden by a low cloud bank, the other two stood out against the dark background of the evening sky as bright pinpricks of light.

In this case the viewing party included daughter Kimberly and her family and Janice and I. Although Kimberly and her family were in Imperial we were joined by cell phone and had a rather excited conversation as the orbiting vessels appeared in the twilight. I discovered later that Janice's sister was out in her driveway in Illinois watching the fly over too. Wow, a party spread over two states at once.

It was also a good opportunity to view Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky to the south, Mars hanging high overhead and Saturn and Regulus in Leo the Lion just rising in the east.

While I have been using the services of www.heavensabove.com to find the timing for the passages, I have discovered another new toy to help find when the passes will occur.

The good folks at www.spaceweather.com have come up with www.spaceweather.com/flybys/ Here, you don't need to know your latitude and longitude -- your zip code is all that is required and you're in business.

I think heavensabove.com is probably a little more accurate overall, but its not perfect, and the flyby site will be useful check. For me it is always exciting to get outside and watch the space station or the shuttle, or both, pass over and to realize that there are other human beings in those bright little dots.

In other astronomical happenings the evening of April 8 will be a good one for a little binocular workout. Watch as the moon passes in front of, or occults, the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation Taurus the Bull. Look to the west in the early evening sky at about 7:45 p.m. for a three-day old crescent moon lurking near the Pleiades. Use your binoculars for the next hour or so as the moon moves in and covers the stars of the cluster one at a time. The disappearances and reappearances of stars are nearly instantaneous

The moon has covered the cluster once before this year but then the moon was full and the bright light washed out the stars of the Pleiades and made them almost invisible. With the just-passed-new moon the dark edge of the moon will be leading the charge in the occultation.

Let's keep up with the moon and watch as on April 11 the waxing crescent passes three degrees to the lower right of the red planet Mars. All around the joined pair you will be able to find the bright stars Procyon in Canis Minor to the left, Capella in Auriga, the Charioteer to the right, Betelgeuse and Rigel in Orion and Aldebaran in Taurus the Bull below.

SKY WATCH: Venus is still shining in the early morning skies in the southeast about an hour before sunrise but it won't be there for long. In mid-month it will be lost in the glare of the rising sun. Jupiter is also showing in the early morning hours in the south. Mars is high overhead in early evening and Saturn is just rising in the east. New moon on Saturday, April 5.

Next time:

More astronomical blathering.