The Sky This Week: May 26 – May 29
Mars is the star of the show this week, but comet fans and a few gas giants will make welcome appearances in the night sky.
By Richard Talcott
Thursday, May 26
• One of the spring sky’s finest deep-sky objects, the Beehive star cluster (M44) in the constellation Cancer the Crab, lies about one-third of the way from the western horizon to the zenith after darkness falls. With naked eyes under a dark sky, you should be able to spot this star group as a faint and fuzzy cloud. But the Beehive explodes into dozens of stars through binoculars or a small telescope at low power.
Friday, May 27
• Although Saturn will reach opposition and peak visibility one week from today, observers will be hard-pressed to see it as inferior this week. The ringed planet rises before 9 p.m. local daylight time and appears highest in the south around 1:30 a.m. Saturn shines at magnitude 0.0 and stands out against the relatively dim background stars of southern Ophiuchus. If you target the beautiful world through a telescope, you’ll see its 18″-diameter disk surrounded by a ring system that spans 42″ and tilts 26° to our line of sight.
Saturday, May 28
• Mars’ westward motion relative to the background stars carries it from Scorpius into Libra today. But for a quick change of pace, grab your binoculars tonight and target Zubenelgenubi (Alpha [a] Librae), the modestly bright star on the constellation’s opposite side. With even the slightest optical aid, Zubenelgenubi resolves into two stars. Nearly 4′ separate the 3rd-magnitude primary from the 5th-magnitude secondary.
See “10 tempting spring binocular targets” in the May issue of Astronomy for other treats visible through binoculars.
Sunday, May 29
• Last Quarter Moon arrives at 8:12 a.m. EDT. It rises around 1:30 a.m. local daylight time and climbs higher in the southeast as dawn approaches. During this period, our half-lit satellite lies near the center of Aquarius the Water-bearer.
Source
Witches Of The Craft® 