Download NIGHTWATCH SHEET May 2017 - National Museums Liverpool

NIGHTWATCH SHEET – MAY 2017
Denebola
Virgo Cluster
The sky at midnight on the 16th. May 2017. All times GMT.
New moon: 25th Full moon: 10th.
The light evenings of mid-spring present a challenge to Astronomers; fewer dark
hours at less convenient times means making the most of the sky when we can.
Look towards the south-west at sunset and you will see the brilliant Jupiter. Over the
month it fades slightly from magnitude -2.4 to -2.3 but remains a very noticeable
object. It lies in Virgo, Jupiter is above the star Spica which is a first magnitude
object, yet compared to Jupiter it does not seem so bright. The moon will pass north
of Jupiter on the 8th. and will be a lovely sight. Binoculars or a small telescope will
show the four Galilean moons and possibly the cloud belts. Your writer had a look at
Jupiter through a three inch telescope a few nights ago and was able to make out
the equatorial cloud belts with their distinctive ruddy colour and the moons. SO give
it a go!
Rising at 23:30 mid-month and by 22:30 at the end of the month Saturn brightens
from magnitude 0.3 to 0.1 over the month. It is to be found in Sagittarius and so will
be low in the sky. The moon passes just below Saturn on the 14 th. Saturn is a
beautiful sight and is always worth a look.
Although there are only two planets (which are fantastic objects to observe) there are
other things to look at. If you find Leo, the star to the left is called Denebola, to the
left of there lies the Virgo cluster. (Marked with an ‘X’ on the map). This is a rich area
of galaxies which form part of the ‘Local Cluster’ of galaxies to which our Milky Way
belongs. There are over 2000 galaxies in the Virgo cluster, many of which can be
seen by amateurs – they will appear as fuzzy blobs, but don’t let hat put you off. The
light you see form them has be travelling to your eye for millions of years!
On this Day…
90 Years Ago – May 20th.-21st. 1927: Charles A. Lindbergh made the first solo
nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Lucky Lindy's single-seat, single engine
aeroplane was called the Spirit of St. Louis. It began the flight from Roosevelt Field
in New York and landed at Le Bourget Air Field just outside Paris.
45 Years Ago - May 24th. 1972: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and USSR
Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin signed an agreement for cooperation in the exploration
of outer space for peaceful purposes which included the docking in space of
US/USSR spacecraft in 1975. It was signed in Moscow.
5 Years Ago - May 22nd. 2012: Dragon C2/C3 was launched from Cape Canaveral
by a Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft was the first fully functional Dragon spacecraft
on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) C2+ Demonstration
Mission for NASA. It successfully docked with the ISS and was later recovered.
The Spirit of St. Louis.
The Dragon C2 spacecraft.