MARSHALL'S NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK - 6th May to 12th May

[TSS TEAM]

MARSHALL'S NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK - 6th May to 12th May

We are proud to present you with another edition of Marshall's night sky events this week! Welcome, we hope you find something of interest! Let us know in the replies if you did, we would love to hear about it! We have also started a look back at events this week in history, hope you enjoy the new segment.

Let's get started by examining the highlights of the night sky this week, May 6th to the 12th. As usual we will list the highlights and discuss a few. We hope you find this info useful and if you have anything you wish to discuss or add, please hit the "Reply" button below and let us know!

Please note that all images are from Stellarium, the link is here: http://stellarium.org/. All other information is freely gathered from various websites, Apps, planetarium software and social media. We would encourage you to download and print your finder charts more specific to your location, the charts/graphics included are for basic guidance only. Many websites like Skymaps.com will allow you to download and print out a free planisphere for each month, the link is here: https://www.skymaps.com/.


EVENTS

6th May
Mercury is 4° South of the Moon.
2024 Eta Aquariid meteor shower - Peak is early hours of the 6th.

7th May

8th May
New Moon 15:22 UTC.

9th May
Mercury is at greatest Western Elongation (26°) from the Sun.

10th May

11th May

12th May


PLANETS

Venus and Uranus are hidden in the glare of sunrise.

Jupiter is hidden in the glare of sunset.

Mercury continues to brighten from mag. 0.6 for the rest of May even as it is reined in by the Sun. Best morning apparition of 2024 for Southern Hemisphere viewers.

Mars and Saturn, both about magnitude +1.2, rise around the beginning of dawn. Look low above the east-southeast horizon about 60 minutes before sunrise. Saturn is the easier one. Mars is off to Saturn's lower left. They widen from 16° apart on the morning of May 4th (about a fist and a half at arm's length) to 21° on May 11th.

Neptune is in the morning sky among the stars of Pisces.


COMETS

C/2021 S3 (PANSTARRS) - (https://theskylive.com/c2023a3-info)
Panstars is rising in Cygnus but fading fast in the north east as the week progresses in the Northern hemisphere and fading, it brightened up to 9.6 mag from February to March, this week it is 12.5 mag. It stays observable in good conditions. It will fade out rapidly after this. In the Southern Hemisphere, it will be unobservable in May.

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) - (https://theskylive.com/c2023a3-info)
Tsuchinshan, continues to brighten in Virgo, will reach perihelion in September and it is expected to brighten up to magnitude 0. Now it is at magnitude 10.7. It will brighten rapidly after this. In the Northern Hemisphere, it will be getting lower gradually, it will be unobservable in July. In the Southern Hemisphere, it stays observable in good conditions.

12P/PONS-BROOKES - (https://theskylive.com/12p-info)
Pons-Brookes in Taurus is now too low on the horizon at Sunset to be seen from the Northern hemisphere. It continues to rise for the Southern hemisphere. Although fading, the viewing geometry improves.


STARS

Zeta Herculis - An unequal binary pair with a highly eccentric 35 year orbit. Currently at maximum separation. Zeta Herculis is the star at the bottom right of the Hercules keystone asterism. And for a bonus point, can you spot the Minor Planet Pallas passing by to the south of Zeta Herculis? It will be at opposition on the 19th May.

Sirius - Have you ever tried for Sirius B? Sirius A and B are now at their widest apparent separation in their 50-year orbit, 11 arcseconds apart, and will remain so for the next couple years before they start closing up again.

T Coronae Borealis - A star system, located 3,000 light-years away from Earth, is predicted to become visible to the unaided eye soon. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime viewing opportunity as the nova outburst only occurs about every 80 years. T Coronae Borealis, or T CrB, last exploded in 1946 and astronomers believe it will do so again between February and September 2024. Plan ahead just in case!
Full article here viewtopic.php?t=33688#p266916.


SPACE LAUNCHES

6th May -
Falcon 9 - Block 5 - Starlink Group 6-56 - 5:34 PM UTC

7th May -
Falcon 9 - Block 5 - Starlink Group 6-57 - SpaceX - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
Atlas V N22 - CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test - United Launch Alliance - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA
Long March 6C | Unknown Payload - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China.

8th May -
Falcon 9 - Block 5 - Starlink Group 8-2 - SpaceX - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

9th May -
Long March 3B/YZ-1 - Unknown Payload - China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation - Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China

10th May -

11th May -

12th May -


INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

We highly recommend using "Spot the Station" from NASA to find out when the International Space station will be passing over your location. This is a fun object to see flying high above, try using binoculars here, lots of fun!

For the HAM radio enthusiasts among you, please keep a eye on the ARISS website for upcoming contacts or SSTV broadcasts for when the International Space Station is within range. There are several HAMS on board the ISS, they should have a busy radio schedule coming up. AMSAT are another great resource in this regard.

This video is from the ISS live feed on YouTube. Watch live video from the International Space Station, including inside views when the crew aboard the space station is on duty. Views of Earth are also streamed from an external camera located outside of the space station. During periods of signal loss due to handover between communications satellites, a blue screen is displayed.




THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

6th May -
271 years ago, in 1753, Charles Messier makes his first documented observation; the Mercury transit of the Sun.
106 years ago, in 1918, the 72 inch Plaskett telescope at The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Saanich, British Columbia sees first light.
59 years ago, in 1965, the Lincoln Calibration Sphere 1 (LCS-1), a large aluminium sphere used for radar calibration, launches with the Lincoln Experimental Satellite-2.
22 years ago, in 2002, SpaceX is founded by Elon Musk.
19 years ago, in 2005, the Cassini Imaging Science Tam discovers a shepherd moon of Saturn, Daphnis.

7th May -
61 years ago, in 1963, Telstar 2 is launched.
49 years ago, in 1975, Canada's Anik A3 communications satellite is launched.
32 years ago, in 1992, the shuttle Endeavour (STS-49) lifts off for its maiden flight.
30 years ago, in 1994, the Clementine lunar probe has a computer malfunction on its way to asteroid Geographos, thus ending the mission.
11 years ago, in 2013, the first Estonian satellite, ESTCube-1, is successfully launched, and is the first satellite to attempt to use an electric solar wind sail.

8th May -
62 years ago, in 1962, The first Atlas-Centaur rocket is launched, but the Centaur stage ruptures at 53 seconds into the flight and disintegrates, taking the Atlas with it.
57 years ago, in 1967, Lunar Orbiter 4 becomes the first spacecraft to go into a polar orbit around the Moon.
6 years ago, in 2018, the Insight probe's deep-space CubeSats, the MarCO pair, set a distance record for CubeSats at 621,371 miles (1 million km) form Earth.
6 years ago, in 2018, one of the Insight probe's deep-space CubeSats, MarCO-B, takes its first picture, and captures the Earth and Moon.

9th May -
102 years ago, in 1922, the IAU passes a resolution to formally adopt Annie Jump Cannon's stellar classification system.
59 years ago, in 1965, Luna 5 is launched to the Moon.
51 years ago, in 1973, the Lunokhod 2 (USSR) moon rover rolls into a crater, where dust covers its solar panels.
21 years ago, in 2003, the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft is launched for asteroid Itokawa.

10th May -
78 years ago, in 1946, a White Sands modified V-2 rocket reaches 69 miles (111 kms).
59 years ago, in 1965, last contact is made with Explorer 18.
43 years ago, in 1981, after just over 17 years in orbit, Explorer 19 reenters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up.
8 years ago, in 2016, NASA's Kepler space telescope verifies 1,284 new exoplanets, the single largest finding of exoplanets to date.

11th May -
243 years ago, in 1781, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) is discovered by Pierre Méchain.
51 years ago, in 1973, Kosmos 557, intended to be Salyut-3, is launched.
15 years ago, in 2009, Servicing Mission 4 is launched aboard shuttle Atlantis (STS-125) to install on Hubble the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
6 years ago, in 2018, the Falcon 9 Block-5 makes its successful maiden flight, placing Bangladesh's first communications satellite, Bangabandhu-1, into orbit.

12th May -
94 years ago, in 1930, the first planetarium in the United States, Adler Planetarium in Chicago, is opened to the public.
59 years ago, in 1965, Luna 5 crashes into the Moon, instead of a soft landing as planned.
57 years ago, in 1967, the Soviet Vostok-2 carrier rocket makes its final flight.
22 years ago, in 2002, during a storm at Baikonur Cosmodrome, the MIK 112 hangar housing OK-1K1 collapses, killing 8 and destroying the Buran shuttle and Energia carrier rocket.
12 years ago, in 2012, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter takes four images of the solar eclipse.


And that is it for the upcoming week. We hope you can all get out and do some observing, sketching and imaging.

Clear skies!

The TSS Team.

[helicon]

We may have some clear nights here after the rain eases on Wednesday. The comets are mostly not observable from my location except perhaps for C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) in Virgo, I would love to catch it though - probably need the six incher to see it. I'd love to see the Pup as well but it is behind the trees after sunset. Canis Major does not get very high in the sky from my latitude, though.

[helicon]

Pretty sure I saw the ISS on Wednesday morning at 2 am. A bright object of perhaps magnitude -2 or -3 traversed the sky high in the West to the East, moving Easterly. Quite a bit brighter than an ordinary satellite or space junk. Since it is the first time I have seen it it was rather impressive.

[helicon]

I just looked up the magnitude of the ISS and it is -3 most of the time. Pretty much nails the observation.

[Thefatkitty]

Sounds about right Michael, a slow moving bright dot travelling east. Good for you on that!

[Thefatkitty]

Actually Michael, you could run Stellarium, put in the time, etc from last night and it will tell (show) you; I've done that quite a bit