{"id":632,"date":"2021-03-28T16:48:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T16:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=632"},"modified":"2021-03-28T16:48:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T16:48:17","slug":"april-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/april-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Venus\nis an evening object again. But it remains a horizon hugger.\nBinoculars may help find it, but any obstruction on the horizon will\nspoil the view. It has a close pairing with Mercury on the 25th<\/sup>.\nThey set just 35 minutes after sunset on that date from 18\u00b0 north\nwhere they may be best seen. Very challenging viewing, indeed!\nMercury gets a little easier to spot by the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As evening\ndarkness sets in, the Hyades and Pleiades are setting. So is Orion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mars starts the\nmonth above them in the northernly region of Taurus and moves toward\nthe feet of Gemini. The red planet will be near Tejat and Propus by\nthe end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo is somewhat\nhigh in the west at sunset with Virgo and Bo\u00f6tes rising below it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the hours\nbetween midnight and dawn, watch Capricornus rising with Saturn in it\nand Jupiter nearly below at the beginning of the month. Mercury is\neven lower, rising below Aquarius close to sunrise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nwaning crescent moon passes by Saturn on the 6th<\/sup>\nand Jupiter on the 7th<\/sup>.\nBoth planets are moving eastward. Jupiter is faster and has made it\nto Aquarius at month’s end. In the meantime, Mercury goes through\nsuperior conjunction on the 19th<\/sup>\non the way to the aforementioned evening meeting with Venus. Mercury\nis at perihelion on the 27th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Depending\non where you are on April 2nd<\/sup>,\na look at Jupiter in a telescope or good binoculars may show you the\nplanet occulting a star. The star is 44 Capricorni, about 409 light\nyears away. The occultation will be visible, at least in part, from\nmuch of eastern North America, most of Central America, and western\nSouth America. The farther north you are, the more likely you’ll get\nto see the beginning or the end but not both, because the sun is\nrising closer to the event time.If you’re not in the right place to\nsee the star disappear or reappear, you may still want to look and\nsee the star fitting in like it belongs among Jupiter’s moons. In\nCentral America, you may even see Io reappearing after crossing\nJupiter’s disk and occulting 44 Capricorni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmoon is at southern lunistice at 25.4\u00b0 and at last quarter on the\n4th<\/sup>.\nIt crosses the equator going north on the 11th<\/sup>,\nthe day before it’s new. Northern lunistice at 25.5\u00b0 is on the 18th<\/sup>,\nfollowed by first quarter phase two days later. The moon goes south\nagain on the 25th<\/sup>\nand is full on the 27th<\/sup>.\nApogee occurs on the 14th<\/sup>\nat 406,200 km. Perigee is on the 27th<\/sup>\nat 357,400 km. That perigee and full moon being on the same day mean\na so-called supermoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nApril Lyrids meteor shower peak is likely to be on the 22nd<\/sup>\nat 12 hours Universal Time. With the waxing gibbous moon, best\nviewing will be late evening to dawn for the western hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\nin Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and part of\nIndonesia can see the moon pass in front of Mars on the 17th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uranus\nis in conjunction with the sun on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venus is an evening object again. But it remains a horizon hugger. Binoculars may help find it, but any obstruction on the horizon will spoil the view. It has a close pairing with Mercury on the 25th. They set just 35 minutes after sunset on that date from 18\u00b0 north where they may be best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-60"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}