Tuesday evening April 24th the waxing gibbous Moon will be over the southwest horizon at sunset local time. The Moon will be about 3o from the star Regulus in Leo the Lion. Over the northwestern horizon at the same time will be the planet Venus about 3o from the open star cluster the Pleiades.
Venus and the Pleiades will easily fit within the field of view of binoculars.
Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for monthly observing information, or here to return to bobs-spaces.
Over the next week or so the two inner planets will pass by each other coming the closest on the 19th when the two will be less then 4o from each other. With only casual observation one should notice that both planets are moving with respect to each other, but in opposite directions. Mercury is recently past its eastern elongation and is now moving westward, in retrograde, toward the Sun and inferior conjunction. On the other hand, or orbit, Venus is moving eastward out from a recent superior conjunction, opposite side of the Sun, toward its own respective eastern elongation.
Even more exciting is that the second full Moon of January will pass through the Earth’s shadow giving us an opportunity to view a total lunar eclipse. Due to the timing for the eclipse viewing from my location will be limited to seeing about the first half the lunar eclipse as the Moon will be setting while still totally eclipsed. For the western Missouri and Eastern Kansas area the Moon enters the Earth’s darker shadow at approximately 5:48 am CST and totality begins at 6:51 am CST, and maximum at 7:29 am CST, five minutes after sunrise.
