{"id":785,"date":"2022-03-29T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T00:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=785"},"modified":"2022-04-17T14:51:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T14:51:35","slug":"april-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/april-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Venus, Saturn, and\nMars are in a dawn lineup as April begins. The red and ringed planets\nare in the east side of Capricornus. For northern hemisphere\nwatchers, that’s on the left. From south of the equator, it’s the\nbottom of the constellation. Venus is between Capricornus and\nAquarius. Observers in the low northern latitudes and nearly anywhere\nsouth of the equator can easily see Jupiter rising closer to sunrise.\nThe view of the big planet is easier from middle and high northern\nlatitudes by mid-month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

All\nfour of these planets are moving directly, that is, eastward of the\nstars behind them. Venus is solidly in Aquarius by the 11th<\/sup>.\nMars and Saturn are on their way there. Jupiter is heading to a still\nhard-to-see Pisces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nthe 23rd<\/sup>,\nSaturn is still in Capricornus by the star Deneb Algedi. Mars is now\nsolidly in Aquarius. And Venus is nearly caught up to Jupiter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nwaning crescent moon adds to the splendor toward the end of April.\nIt’s west of Saturn on the morning of the 24th<\/sup>.\nIt’s approaching Mars the next morning and Venus the morning after\nthat. The moon’s close to Jupiter on the 27th<\/sup>.\nBy that morning, Venus is also very close to Jupiter. The moon is\nbelow them all on the 28th<\/sup>.\nJupiter and Venus are closest on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nour evening sky, see the moon in Taurus on the 4th<\/sup>\nand 5th<\/sup>.\nIt will be close to the Pleiades one night and the Hyades the next.\nIt’ll be at first quarter in the heart of Gemini on the 8th<\/sup>.\nIt’s almost full at the belly of Leo on the 12th<\/sup>.\nIt will be full in Virgo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Mercury\nis an evening object most easily seen in the second half of April.\nIt’s at perihelion on the 13th<\/sup>\nat 0.308 astronomical units. It’s visually close to Uranus around the\n17th<\/sup>.\nThe planet reaches greatest elongation on the 29th<\/sup>\nat 20.6\u00b0 east of the sun. It’ll pass by the Pleiades on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moon\nphases: new on the 1st<\/sup>,\nfirst quarter on the 9th<\/sup>,\nfull on the 16th<\/sup>,\nlast quarter on the 23rd<\/sup>,\nnew again on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmoon’s crossing the equator northward on the 1st<\/sup>.\nNorthern lunistice is on the 8th<\/sup>\nat 26.9\u00b0. The southward equatorial crossing is on the 15th<\/sup>.\nSouthern lunistice is on the 21st<\/sup>\nat 26.9\u00b0. And another northward crossing is on the 28th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunar\napogee is on the 7th<\/sup>\nat 404,500 km. Perigee is on the 19th<\/sup>\nat 365,200 km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moon will cover up to 54% of the sun’s disk on Saturday, April 30th. Most of the eclipse happens over the southern Pacific Ocean. So if you happen to be on a cruise or one of the islands there, get your eye protection and enjoy the event on the afternoon of the 30th<\/sup>. The southern parts of South America get a sunset eclipse. Chile, Argentina, and parts of Bolivia and Paraguay get the best views of it. The internet will surely have some amazing photos that night of an orange, partially eclipsed sun sinking into an ocean horizon or going behind the Andes mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nApril Lyrids meteor shower should peak around the 22nd<\/sup>.\nThe best views will be in the evening before a nearly last quarter\nmoon rises. It’s mainly a northern hemisphere event because of how\nfar north Lyra is. But you could see a Lyrid in places where Lyra\nisn’t visible. It’s just hard to trace it back to that point of\norigin. Some of this shower’s meteors produce bright fireballs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venus, Saturn, and Mars are in a dawn lineup as April begins. The red and ringed planets are in the east side of Capricornus. For northern hemisphere watchers, that’s on the left. From south of the equator, it’s the bottom of the constellation. Venus is between Capricornus and Aquarius. Observers in the low northern latitudes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-61"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","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=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":792,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions\/792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}