{"id":612,"date":"2012-03-25T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-03-25T00:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=612"},"modified":"2012-03-24T00:37:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-24T00:37:35","slug":"astronomy-events-for-april-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/25\/astronomy-events-for-april-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomy events for April 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>SkyCaramba weekly astronomy blog for the week ending March 31, 2012<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>April begins with Venus above Jupiter in the west. Venus and Jupiter are both climbing upward against the starry background. But they are becoming visible a little later each evening because of later sunsets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Venus is heading toward the Pleiades and passes them on the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> and 4<sup>th<\/sup>. The planet will be just 34\u2019 from Merope on the 3<sup>rd<\/sup> at 00:34 UT. That\u2019s just slightly more than a full moon\u2019s width away. Venus is even closer to Alcyone, at 24\u2019 separation at 15:53 on the same date. And it\u2019s closer still to Alcyone on the 4<sup>th<\/sup> at 00:28 with just 14\u2019 separation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A very thin crescent moon passes Jupiter on the 21<sup>st<\/sup>. The best places to see it from are those at about 18\u00b0 north latitude. Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and central India are among the places well situated. The moon\u2019s a little thicker but still a crescent shape when it passes by Venus on the 24<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Orion, long thought of as a winter constellation in the northern hemisphere, is setting shortly after the sun these evenings. Seeing Orion going down and not having to be out in a heavy coat may remind you of the winter that was not long ago. Gemini sets a little after Orion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Leo\u2019s on the meridian by mid-evening. Spot red Mars just below it. A nearly full moon passes it on the 3<sup>rd<\/sup>. The red planet is inching westward each night toward Regulus. But Mars hesitates around the 11<sup>th<\/sup>. By the 24<sup>th<\/sup>, it should be clear that Mars is moving eastward again. The moon, a little newer than in the earlier encounter, passes Mars again on the 30<sup>th<\/sup>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Virgo rises in mid-evening. Saturn is near the constellation\u2019s bright star Spica. The ringed planet is moving westward as if aiming for a point north of Spica. The moon passes 2\u00b0 from Spica on the 6<sup>th<\/sup>. Saturn is at opposition on the 15<sup>th<\/sup>. It\u2019ll be up all night. Saturn\u2019s 8.7 astronomical units (Earth-Sun distances) away for this opposition. It was slightly closer, 8.6 AU, last year. Next April, Saturn will be at opposition again, a little farther, at 8.8 AU. This year\u2019s opposition will be the ringed planet\u2019s third in a row in Virgo. Next year, it will still be close to Virgo, but barely inside the Libra constellation lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The April Lyrid meteor shower peaks on the 22<sup>nd<\/sup> with no moon in the sky to wash out the view this year. You may see 10 to 20 meteors an hour at its peak. These meteors tend to leave trails that linger for several seconds. The April Lyrid shower is hard to predict, so it\u2019s not easy to tell you what to expect. But that\u2019s what makes astronomers excited about it. They don\u2019t know if there might be an unusually high peak as happened in 1982 and a rate of 90 per hour were seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I hope you have clear skies at the right times. \u00a1SkyCaramba!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Venus and Jupiter reign over the west in the evening, Mars and Saturn are up most of the night, and there&#8217;s an unpredictable meteor shower this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[270,5,269,25,4,614,78,17,79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}