OK, so April will be just another month with an incredible display of the planets in the night sky. But, this month we add a few new twists. Not only are Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter easy to see, but we add a really good opportunity to see Mercury with the naked eye, although binoculars sure will help. Look for Mercury just up from the western horizon about an hour after sunset. There are very few stars to interfere in that area, so the dot of Mercury should be easy to see. Venus is still extraordinarily bright above the western horizon, and will provide a special view on the nights of April 1-4. On those nights, Venus will lie at a degree or less from the significant open cluster, called the Pleiades, located in the constellation Taurus. Mars is still there, up the ecliptic from Venus. It is getting even smaller and smaller, and its red is now a dim orange, but it will be moving rapidly through the night skies in April. By the end of the month, Mars will be well up towards Saturn in the night sky. Saturn is still nicely visible, high in the night sky, but April and May will have the last really good views of it. In the autumn, Saturn will return to our dark skies, but in the dawn hours. Jupiter is the bright disk in the eastern sky in the evening hours, climbing higher and higher as the night goes on.

April’s Full Moon will be at 6:03 AM on Monday, the 5^th. As you might expect, the traditional names for this moon refer to the end of winter, and the coming of the growing season. Some names are the Planter’s Moon, Egg Moon, and the Pink Moon (for the color of the plains phlox, not the moon itself). On the 23^rd, a crescent moon moves into the gap between Venus and Mars. There will be a partial eclipse of the Sun on the 19^th. Unfortunately, it will be visible only from South Africa.

April’s best meteor shower is the Lyrid shower, which peaks on the night of April 21/22. Since the New Moon was on the 19^th, the sky should be truly dark for these meteors. As the name indicates, the radiant of this shower is in the constellation Lyra. It will be easiest to see around midnight, above the northeastern horizon, with approximately 20 meteors per hour, lasting until dawn.

It would be nice to be able to describe exactly when, where, and how bright a comet will be in the night sky…but you can’t. Hopefully, the two comets expected this spring will blaze across the night sky, but you didn’t hear that from me. In mid-April, comet C/2002 T7 will be in the pre-dawn twilight low in the east. Comet C/2001 Q4 should appear in late April and into May. And that’s all I’m saying.

By mid-April, the constellations of Taurus and Orion will be moving out of sight below the western horizon. Along the Ecliptic, Gemini (with Saturn at its feet), Cancer, Leo (with Jupiter below it), and Virgo will dominate. To the north, the constellations of the Andromeda and Perseus legend will be less easy to see at the northwestern horizon. Try this, find the Big Dipper, but follow the line of the Handle, not the pointer stars. If you continue the line of the Handle out, it will “arc to Arcturus”. This red-orange giant is the brightest star in the constellation Bootes, and is the fourth brightest of all stars in the night sky. If you continue that same line out from Arcturus, then you have to “speed on to Spica”. This is the brightest star in the Zodiac constellation of Virgo, and is located just a little off the ecliptic itself. Spica is the fourteenth brightest star in the night, and is seen as a blue giant, but is actually a binary star.