Friday night’s sky will feature a cosmic get-together worth checking out, when the Moon passes close to Mars. When these lunar alignments occur during full Moon they often go unnoticed. However, this event happens at first quarter and should look picturesque with the soft light of the Moon’s semicircle next to the Red Planet. The Moon gets within a degree—two lunar widths—at closest but that view will be available to night owls only, occurring at about 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning. By then the pair is also very low in the sky and may not be visible to many horizon-challenged observers. The view shown here is three hours earlier when the pair is already close but also still a third the way up to the zenith.
Behind this planetary pair you should be able to see a stellar duo—the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. The bright stars Pollux and Castor mark the heads of the Twins, left and right respectively in your view. Of course, Mars is moving slowly in the sky, too, and by month’s end will form a triple with Pollux and Castor, being about the same distance south of Pollux as Castor is northwest of it. You may also be able to see the even brighter red supergiant star Betelgeuse, part of the constellation of Orion, below Gemini.
Early risers may have already noticed the fading view of our “morning stars” as Mercury disappeared from view earlier this month. It will reappear in the evening sky by month’s end. By then Venus will be lost in the Sun and will not be seen again until it emerges in the evening sky during July.
Stargazers who want a bit of a challenge can try for the Lyrid meteor shower, which peaks on the evening of the 21st, better as you get toward midnight. Look to the northeast—Lyra is marked by the star Vega, the fifth brightest of all stars. There will be about 20 shooting stars per hour but the problem will be the full Moon, which will wash out the sky a good bit. Good luck!
The alignment of the Moon, Regulus and Mars 3:00 am on the night of the 14th-15th.
Above shows where Lyra is, the radiant poing for the Lyrid meteor shower on the night of April 21st.
