Moon, Venus get up close and personal

Wow! Although I don't think that is a big enough adjective to describe the experience of watching the moon occult, or cover up, the planet Venus last Wednesday morning.

I am not normally a morning astronomer, but this was an event worth watching so I popped up my trusty telescope and had a peek. The moon was an excruciatingly slender crescent almost lost in the blue of the sky just after sunrise and Venus was a very bright dot just to the moon's left.

In the telescope Venus was also showing a slender crescent shape equal to the moon in appearance. Such an appearance 400 years ago started Galileo thinking that perhaps the moon and planets didn't orbit Earth after all and that perhaps Copernicus was right; Earth was not the center of the universe, and perhaps all these celestial things did orbit the sun.

Consider the fact that the telescope Galileo was using, as crude as it was, could show all these astronomical wonders. The same wonders that today can be seen even using the cheapest of dime store telescopes.

Watching as the pair crept closer to each other was an amazing experience. Slowly the bright crescent of the moon moved in on the equally bright crescent of Venus to eventually cover it completely. One moment it was there, the next, poof! gone.

Friday is May 1, May Day, or Beltane as it is called in the old calendar. Beltane is a cross quarter day, or a day that is roughly halfway between an equinox and a solstice. In this case, spring and summer.

Summer will officially start on June 21 at 1:45 a.m. EDT when the sun crosses Earth's equator heading north giving us, theoretically, equal day and night, at least for a while.

That, of course, puts a crimp in our calendar here in Nebraska, making it 11:45 p.m. on June 20 for us.

Also, Saturday, May 2, is International Astronomy Day, so, go hug an astronomer.

SKY WATCH:

First quarter moon May 1. Also on May 1-3 there will be a conjunction, a meeting, in the northwest of the first planet out from the sun, Mercury, and the tiny star cluster, the Pleiades. Look in the northwest about an hour after sunset on each of those days. Binoculars won't be needed, but might help. There will also be a nice conjunction of the moon, Saturn, and the star Regulus in Leo the Lion on Sunday, May 3. Look in the south about an hour after sunset; the moon will be below the ringed planet. Bright Regulus will be off to the right of the pair. If you are so inclined and want to be up early, check the eastern sky on Wednesday, May 6 about two hours before sunrise for the constellation Aquarius. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will reach maximum at about that time. There is the possibility of two or three dozen bright steaks with long tails per hour. The prime period for the shower is from May 3 to May 10 with the peak period being on May 6. The meteors are the leftover bits and pieces from previous passes of Comet 1P/Halley

NEXT TIME:

More astronomical blathering.