The Night Sky April 2019
Virgo
The return of Virgo in the night sky is a sign that Spring is on its way. The constellation will be visible for the best part of six months and then it will fall below the horizon for the next half year. The appearance of this constellation at this time of year was not lost on storytellers throughout history.
Proserpine (Virgo, in Roman legend), was the goddess of fertility. Her father and brothers buried a monster alive under Mount Etna and the Earth began to shake. Pluto, the God of the Underworld, flew out from the Earth in anger, immediately spotted Proserpine and kidnapped her. She vanished for many years and her disappearance caused flowers to wilt, land to become parched and cattle to die. A condition of her release, when it was discovered that she was captive, was that she could only be released for six months and had to return to the underworld for the rest of the year. Hence the Earth turning cold and flowers dying each year, only to be reborn each year in the Spring.
The constellation Virgo contains a treasure trove of deep sky objects. It even hosts a magical area called ‘Realm of the Galaxies’. Also called the Virgo cluster, it contains about 3000 galaxies at about 65 million light years away from us. Most of these are quite faint and you will need a moderate-size telescope to spot them. But the most impressive galaxy to observe and a relatively short distance away would be the beautiful Sombrero Galaxy (M104).
Named appropriately due to its similarity to a wide brimmed Mexican hat! It is possible to spot it through binoculars or a small telescope but you will need more magnification to spot the dust lanes circling the bright centre. It’s definitely worth trying to find, so I’ve included a diagram to help.
Planets
If you are wanting to see some planets this month the best time is very early morning. On 24th the moon will be close to Jupiter at 1am in the south-east and then the following morning Saturn at about 3am. Venus also makes a brief appearance low in the Eastern sky at about 5am before the sun drowns out its bright light.
Lyrid Meteor Shower
The evening of 22ndand morning of 23rd April is the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower. This year the moon will be shining quite brightly as three days earlier it will be a full moon. It may dazzle out some of the show but not all of it! Where to look, what they are and how best to see them can be found in my blog going back to this time last year (see below). The source or radiant is North-East half-way up in the sky over Embsay Crag from the village centre. Wrap up well!
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