Skywatch Line for Friday, May 17, through Sunday, May 19, written by Sam Salem
This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, May 17, through Sunday, May 19, written by Sam Salem.
On Friday, Sun rises at 5:30am and sets at 8:14pm; Moon sets at 2:55am and rises at 2:28pm.
The Moon will reach apogee, its farthest distance from Earth in its elliptical orbit around Earth, on Friday, when it’s 251,431 miles away.
On Friday night, the dark limb of the waxing gibbous Moon occults Beta Virginis, magnitude 3.6. The occultation happens after midnight in the Eastern and Central time zones.
On Saturday, the waxing gibbous Moon shines brightly in the south after dark, but not so brightly as to hide the constellation of Corvus, the Crow, a little more than a fist directly under it. Cover the Moon with your hand to make Corvus easier. Its four main stars are all between magnitude 2.6 and 3.0. They’re within 8° of each other, smaller than your fist at arm’s length.
On Sunday, the Moon continues to illuminate the constellation of Virgo part of the sky. Early in the evening look about 3° or 4° lower left of the Moon for Spica, Virgo’s brightest star. They’ll rise before sunset and be visible through several hours after midnight. By midnight the Moon moves closer to Spica, which is now directly to its left.
Mars and Saturn, both about magnitude +1.2, rise just before dawn. In early dawn, about 75 to 60 minutes before sunrise, look for them low in the east-southeast. Saturn is the easy one. Find Mars well to Saturn’s lower left. They are 26° apart on Saturday.
Jupiter will lie on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth on Friday and can’t be seen from Earth. This point in its orbit is called superior conjunction.
On May 18, 1969, the Apollo 10 was launched to be a complete staging of the Apollo 11 mission without landing on the Moon. The mission was the second to orbit the Moon and the first to travel to the Moon with the entire Apollo spacecraft configuration. It made a successful eight-day dress rehearsal for the first manned Moon landing. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan descended inside the Lunar Module to within 14 kilometers of the lunar surface, achieving the closest approach to the Moon before Apollo 11 landed two months later.
On May 19, 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet, the most intimate contact between the Earth and any comet in recorded history. The event was anticipated with dire predictions. A few years earlier, astronomers had found the poisonous gas cyanogen in a comet. Therefore, it was assumed that if Earth passed through the Halley’s comet tail everyone would die. Astronomers explained that the gas molecules within the tail were so tenuous that no ill effects would be noticed. Nevertheless, “comet pills” were sold to the panicked portion of the public to counter the effects of the cyanogen gas.