Rare Event: Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Moon To Line Up On These 3 April Nights

[elleng]

Here's How To Watch:

'One of the side effects of coronavirus lockdown around the world has been the tremendous reduction in pollution level. One can breathe in fresh air. And after ages probably, stars are also visible in the night sky.

This is an ideal time to stargaze, given the number of constellations one can easily spot in the night sky without a telescope or even binoculars. Hope you did not miss the giant pink supermoon that recently graced the night sky.

You might not want to miss another major celestial event that is going to occur soon: Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the moon will appear together for three days! April 14, 15, 16.'>>>

https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/environment/soon-on-these-3-april-days-you-can-see-mars-saturn-jupiter-and-the-moon-together-at-night-510477.html?

[2naSalit]

1. And the moon will be in a different place each night.

Thanks for the headz up, I hope the clouds will clear by then. Weather forecast says it should be a lot warmer. We are having a brief return of winter right now.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

15. Mars too. It's moving backward relative to Jupiter and Saturn.

Don't miss Antares, somewhat to the west.

[2naSalit]

18. Thanks.

I think about it often though I can't see it. I haven't seen anything beyond the bottom of all these clouds since last week, can't remember what day.

And it's snowing today so I suspect that I'll be missing that unless it clears up before they move too far apart. There's always Elon Musk's space junk parade to watch for.

[yonder]

2. Thanks.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Thank you for posting.

I have the good fortune to live in Santa Fe, NM, where I usually have clear skies. Plus, this city isn't very large, so light pollution isn't too much of a problem.

A couple of years ago I could go outside shortly after sunset and see Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in the night sky. Uranus was also up there, although not visible to my eyes. Neptune was also up, but a telescope was definitely needed. And in the wee hours of the morning Pluto rose in the east, although again a serious telescope was needed to see it.

What was so very cool was that I could see the four planets I first named, and I kept on knocking on neighbor's doors and dragging them outside to see this.

I love astronomy. No surprise that I have a son getting a PhD in that field.

[elleng]

4. Terrific!

A few years ago, I too saw several planets lined up, even tho I'm within 60 miles of DC. Pretty rural and sparsely populated around here.

JUST got a pic of 'rising' moon, with clouds.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Sparsely populated helps.

Almost none of us experience truly dark skies, but even somewhat dark skies can be wonderful.

Don't know if you know, but Tucson, AZ has a Dark Skies policy. It was instituted about 50 years ago, as the light pollution from the city was interfering with the many telescopes on the mountains surrounding the city.

I partially grew up in Tucson, went to high school there, graduated in 1965 and moved away in 1968. Because I still have family and friends there, I visited semi-regularly.

A few years back on a trip there I was thunderstruck by what it was like driving in the middle of the city at night. Because of the Dark Skies policy, the streets were very well lit at street level, but if you looked above street level, oh my goodness! The night sky was dark and you could see lots of stars. It was actually rather disconcerting, as I'm used to the light level of cities rising well above me. In Tucson, anything above eye level was DARK.

I do wish more cities would do this. It's really not that hard, and improves the quality of life at night for the citizenry.

As a comparison, one amazing thing about the current stay at home because of the Corona Virus, is that skies are clearing in places like Los Angeles, and many other things are far cleaner. Not sure if clear skies in Los Angeles make star-gazing any easier. Probably not since light pollution is the first problem. But every single city could transition to a Dark Skies policy, and that would be wonderful. So what if it takes decades? Over time it will be wonderful.

[DarthDem]

6. What is a dark skies policy?

I'm a lifelong stargazer and appreciate this thread and your and everyone's contributions. I got a beautiful shot of the waning moon next to Antares last night.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. In Tucson it means that lights need to be designed so they deflect downward

and do not scatter light upwards.

What that means is that if you go outside in Tucson and you look much above eye level, the night sky is DARK. You can see the stars and the planets. If you're used to other cities, it's weird and disconcerting, because you're used to everything being illuminated. But in Tucson, it's not. Again, at the risk of repeating myself, the streets are well illuminated, but if you look above where you'd normally see streetlights, it's dark.

If you are really interested, there's an adult astronomy camp at the University of Arizona that I cannot begin to recommend enough. It's run by Don McCarthy, who is simply the best natural teacher I have ever known. And I'm speaking as someone who attended college on and off for some 40 years.

I went to that camp a few years ago, and aside from all the amazing things like actually operating serious telescopes, what I liked best was his teaching methodology. He'd ask a question, and if you gave a wrong answer it was beyond okay. I got very comfortable with saying, "I'm sure this is wrong, but this is my answer."

My son, who is currently in a PhD program in astronomy at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA (a bit outside of Washington DC) went to the astronomy camp for teens three times. First was the beginning camp, the other two advanced camp. What was very heartening to me was that when I was finally able to do the adult camp Don remembered my son. That was nice.

I have thought about attending again, but for various reasons that probably won't happen. But I will very strongly encourage you, or anyone else who reads this, to consider doing so.

Don is my age. I'm 71. When I was at the adult camp I asked him who would take over when he was ready to retire. He told me, probably not anyone. For one thing, he would not recommend doing the astronomy camps to someone coming in as a career path. He love doing it, and I will assure you is very good at it. But he understands the limitations of running the camp.

So sign up as soon as possible.

[DarthDem]

12. Thank You!

Appreciate the thoughtful, detailed post. Great policy in Tucson.

The camp does sound excellent. I will consider it! Thanks.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. "... PhD program in astronomy at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA...."

I didn't know they had one. I took a few courses at GMU.

You can't do much (any?) optical astronomy in northern Virginia account the light pollution.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. Most astronomy these days is not done optically.

Or at least not in the way we tend to think of it as an astronomer going to the telescope and looking through it with his own eyes. They are looking at every possible part of the spectrum, infra-red, ultra-violet, radio waves. Information is gathered electronically and the astronomers analyze that information in various ways. Thanks to the internet, they don't often go visit the telescopes they're using, either.

My son is doing exo-planet research, mainly in that he's trying to refine a program that allows exo-planets to be found using the radial velocity method, which basically looks at how a planet affects the orbit of the star it is orbiting. Which is why most of the planets that have been located are very large gas giants that are pretty close in to their star. Anyway, with one chart he sent to me of his work he'd taken observations from telescopes on Mauna Kea (Hawaii), Kitt Peak (Arizona, just outside of Tucson), Calar Alto (Spain), Las Campanas (Chile), Sutherland (South Africa), Siding Spring (New South Wales, Australia). Right now most, maybe all of those telescopes are off-line due to Covid-19. Even though astronomers generally don't need to be on site, they do have staff to operate the telescopes, make sure they're pointed at the right part of the sky, and so on. Which is why, like so much other stuff, they're closed for the duration.

For my son, he's simply making use of data that's already out there, so the research he's doing isn't impacted at all.

Recently, in trying to explain his research to me, my son told me that astronomers have pointed some telescope at our own sun, and have been able to discover Jupiter. The joke is that someday, using the telescope and radial velocity, they will be able to discover Venus. The essential point is that Jupiter is massive enough to have a measurable effect on the sun. Venus is so much smaller, that at least so far we can't find it that way.

Hope this all makes sense.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. "... see Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in the night sky."

That happened in September 2008. It could have happened at another time between then and now.

[elleng]

21. Caught it just now!

[mahatmakanejeeves]

22. It's cloudy here.

It was when I checked an hour ago. I just went back outside. The moon is in and out of the clouds. I saw Saturn too.

[elleng]

20. I just caught it/them!

See my pic! (IF you do FB.)

[progree]

9. I hope people don't wait til April 14... every pre-dawn for the last several nights, and continuing

for the next several nights, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars are in a row in the southeast sky ... and Jupiter is now considerably much brighter than any star, even the number one brightest star, Sirius.

Myself, I like it without the dang moon's brightness blotting out the rest of the sky. So I think its better now than waiting until April 14-16.

Oh, and don't forget to look for super-super bright venus after sunset in the western sky.

One can enjoy star-gazing even with a lot of light pollution

I learned the constellations living in Nigeria where to the south of us was a half mile of beach, and then the ocean. So I could trace all the constellations.

Well, it aint that way in Minneapolis (or Golden Valley -- 1st suburb west of Minneapolis). For decades, I was so pissed off about the light pollution and all the naturally cloudy days and nights that I never bothered looking for stars and planets. Then a couple of years ago when there was a lot of news about Mars being in its closest approach in whatever many years. A lot of discussion online here. So I decided to learn what stars and planets I could.

Thanks to https://in-the-sky.org/skymap2.php

(get rid of that deep space junk with that checkbox -- nobody can see any of that stuff unless they live 50 miles from the nearest street lamp, so its just clutter)

Anyhow, it's a matter of learning a few of the brightest stars. Oh, there are a couple of constellations -- the Big Dipper and Orion -- those two one should be able to trace, and that's about it for those living in light-polluted cities and suburbs in northern states. The rest is learning where and identifying the 20 or so brightest stars.

Learning the asterisms (patterns of stars that don't fit in a constellation but span many constellations -- e.g. the summer triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair. Or the winter asterism of a 6-sided quadralateral of Rigel (ORion's foot), Procyon, Sirius, Castor and Pollux of the Gemini Twins, and Aldebaran of the Bull and Capella. Very much diminished from what I saw in Nigeria. But still a delight to identify these few bright stars and the planets as they make their appearance.

[elleng]

11. Thanks. I often miss 'pre-dawn,'

as I'm a night owl, and my view is obscured due to trees etc., but will TRY.

[DarthDem]

13. Most of my favorite stars in there

Along with Spica. Such a pretty blue star and always locatable and beautiful to see.

[progree]

14. Yes, I should include in asterisms the arc of the Big Dipper's handle leading to Arcturus and then

onward to Spica.

[kentuck]

23. Astrologically...

Hitler's Birthday should be historic this year, as soon as the Moon conjuncts the Sun and above mentioned planets, along with Pluto.

4-20-20