VV april may 22

Clear Skies
Welcome to clear skies, a quick summary of
night sky items for the month that you can look
for from your garden or a suitable window.
see a lone “star”. It will be roughly in the same
place for about 1 week, before it rushes back
towards the sun’s glare.
Have you ever noticed that the evening
crescent moon in April and May, appears to be
quite high above the setting sun in the west. At
other times of the year you can see the
crescent moon, but perhaps not so high. This
effect is due to the evening crescent moon
being in the sky where the sun will be in about
2 months time. In other words, the crescent
moon is at the position of the mid-summer sun.
This also means that the moon does not set
until around 11.30pm (5 th April, 5 th May),
placing a bright crescent moon in a very dark
sky. The other thing you may notice about the
moon, is that you can see the whole face of the
moon as a grey disc, with the crescent on the
side. This is called “earth shine” and as the
name implies, it is sunlight reflecting from
earth’s bright clouds onto that part of the
moon. If you were standing on the moon in that
grey area, you would see a dazzlingly bright
earth in the lunar night sky. Not as bright as the
sun, but still very impressive.
There is a local astronomical society in the area,
and they operate the observatory on the top of
Toothill. Public evening viewings are now back
and the ones for April will be on Friday and
Saturday 22/23 April starting at 8.30pm. The
evenings for May are Friday and Saturday 6/7
starting at 9.30pm.
Open nights: Each month we have primary
dates and backup dates. We open on back up
dates if both the primary dates are cloudy/
rainy. We confirm whether we’re opening
during the afternoon of the day on our
Facebook page – Solent Amateur Astronomers.
https://www.facebook.com/
groups/906124436125287/?ref=share.
We suggest a donation of £5 per adult,
accompanied children are free.
Stephen McCann –
Solent Amateur
Astronomers, http://
www.solentastro.org/
2022 Toothill Open nights
April Primary Dates: Fri 22, Sat 23, Start 20:30
{M13 Globular Cluster, M35 Open Cluster,
Castor, Leo Triplet, Double Cluster, M42 Orion
Nebula}
No moon
May Primary Dates: Fri 06, Sat 07, Start 21:30
{Moon, Izar, M13 & M92 Globular Clusters,
At Easter (17 th April) have a look for Mercury Double Cluster, M42 Orion Nebula}
after sunset. At 7.30pm (in the twilight) look Moon 30%
slightly to the right of due west and you should
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