2018 Week 20: (May 13-May 19)

The weather looks to be dry and warm for most of the week and will be a good time to get out.  We will only have official night for less than two weeks.  Twilight will encompass us until July 19!  There are a few things to check out this week as shown in the chart below.

Date	Event
May 13	Mercury 2°S of Moon
May 15	New Moon
May 17	Venus 5°N of Moon
May 19	Falcon 9 Launch (Iridium Next 51-55 & GRACE Follow-On) 2:03pm

Early tomorrow morning around 5:30am the innermost planet, Mercury, will be in next to the very slim waning crescent Moon and the planet Uranus.  As the Sun quickly follows them up I hesitate to say it will be a difficult observation.

The Moon begins a new cycle two days later and will again be visible to us in the evening sky.  Another two days later the Moon will tuck in quite close to Venus.  Since the Moon will be a gentle waxing crescent it will appear less than 10x the brightness of Venus.  At this time our neighbouring planet will be 84.2% illuminated as a waning gibbous.  If you can catch it through a telescope you will notice it is not a perfect circle.

On Sunday, watch out for another Falcon 9 launch as it takes 5 Iridium satellites to orbit replacing the original Iridium constellation (a set of satellites in space is called a 'constellation').  This will slowly make the famous Iridium Flares extinct and public outreach astronomers will have to find other things to showcase in the sky!  Watch the launch at the link below.

https://spaceflightnow.com/

If you would like to chase constellations this week with your naked eye see the map below that is calibrated for May 17, 10:30pm at 51°N latitude.

Skymap 10:30 May 17, 2018

You can run through the zodiac constellations that are present at this time from Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra.  Cancer is difficult to see from the city as it is a very dim constellation.  Jupiter will appear in the scales of Libra while Venus is in the eastern edge of Taurus, close to Gemini.

The Big Dipper asterism (not a constellation) will appear directly overhead, use it to find Polaris; the North Star.

You may notice a bright star rising in the northeastern sky.  This is Vega, in Lyra, one of the brightest stars in the sky.  Also, try to spot Arcturus in the constellation Boötes which is slightly brighter than Vega.

Each blog post has links to other posts that may describe some of these things in more detail.  If you ever see anything in the sky you have questions about send a message to our Facebook group below.

www.facebook.com/simonjastronomy

Enjoy the nigh sky this week!