Shropshire's Sky at Night - April

Shropshire stargazer Carl Drinkwater tells you what to look out for in the skies above in April – without the need for an expensive telescope:

The great display put on by Venus and Jupiter is almost over, but Saturn is reaching opposition this month, and Mars is still visible in the early evening.

The clocks have also gone forward, which means it's lighter for longer in the evening. For astronomers, that's not too much of a problem at the start of April as sunset is at about 7:45pm. By the start of May it's 8:35pm, and by June it's 9:20pm. At the start of March, sunset was before 6pm, so you can see that the change in the clocks and the longer summer days make a lot of difference.

Astronomers wishing to see faint objects like galaxies need to wait until well after sunset, and skilled astronomers looking for the faintest objects have to wait until after astronomical twilight, when the Sun is about 15 degrees below the horizon and doesn't illuminate the sky at all. In Birmingham, from the middle of May to near the end of July, the Sun never drops that far below the horizon.

Last August, I was trying to take images of a galaxy, and had less that two hours from about 11:30pm to before 2am the following morning, before the Sun started to ruin my images.

So the next time someone is a grump and says they prefer the long, dark nights of winter, don't assume they are a manic depressive - ask if they are an astronomer!

Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter are still visible in the twilight, low on the western horizon. Jupiter will be lost in the twilight after the middle of the month, although Venus seems to hang in the sky at roughly the same place throughout the month.

Venus gets slightly brighter until the middle of the month, but with the sun setting later each day, it will probably appear to fade.

Mars

After Mars' opposition last month, it's now fading. It will still be brighter than nearly everything else in the sky, but if you want to see it, it's best doing it sooner rather than later.

At the start of the month, Mars is the obviously bright object in the south-eastern sky just after sunset, and is directly south at about 11pm. At the end of the month, it's directly south at about 9pm.

Saturn

Saturn is a lot of people's favourite planet, because of its famous rings. And there is nothing that quite prepares you for seeing Saturn through a telescope for the first time - the rings make it look fake somehow.

Unfortunately, because Saturn is so far away and appears to be so small, you do need a telescope to see the rings. With regular binoculars, Saturn may appear to look slightly squashed or elongated rather than a round planet, but you'll need very high-powered, large aperture binoculars on a steady tripod to have any chance of making out the rings.

If that hasn't put you off taking a look, Saturn reaches opposition on the 15th April, so will be at its brightest and highest in the sky at about midnight on that date. (Actually, because of daylight saving, it's at its highest at 1am on the 16th!) At the start of the month or earlier in the evening, look to the south west, and later in the month or later in the night, look to the south east.

Whenever you look Saturn will be easy to spot because it's only a few degrees from Spica, the 15th brightest star in the sky. Saturn is the leftmost, and slightly brighter, of the pair.

Meteor Showers

As mentioned in the blog post about the impressive fireball witnessed at the start of March, there is a meteor shower in April, called the Lyrids.

The Lyrid meteor shower lasts from about 16th April to 26th April, and on the night of 21st April through to the early hours of the 22nd April, the meteor shower reaches peak activity and you can see up to 20 meteors an hour if you're under dark skies.

Lyrids can be quite bright though, so even if you have light pollution, you should see a number of them if you're patient. This year is a good year to see this particular shower as there is no moon in the sky, and it's a Saturday night so staying up late is less of a problem for most people.

The meteors can occur anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, you will notice they all seem to come from the same point in the sky. This point is called the radiant, and the meteor shower is named for the constellation in which the radiant is located. This meteor shower's radiant is located in the constellation Lyra, hence Lyrids.

If you see any meteors which don't appear to come from this radiant, then it's an unrelated, sporadic meteor.

Meteor showers are annual, and are caused by the Earth passing close to the tail of a comet. The comet doesn't need to be close to Earth, or need to have passed by recently. The source of the Lyrids is the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. This comet comes around once every 415 years, and was last in this neck of woods 150 years ago.

Lyra is easily found since it's a small constellation with one of the stars being Vega, which is the 5th brightest star in the sky. If you look in the eastern sky at midnight, you'll see Vega about 30 degrees up from the horizon. Lyra is made up of Vega, and four stars below it.

Will you be watching the skies this month? Leave your comments below: