Minnesota Starwatch

University of Minnesota

Department of Astronomy

Minnesota Starwatch for April 2004
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Starwatch Newsletter

Minnesota Starwatch is a newsletter describing the night sky in the Midwest.

It is updated monthly, and is produced by the
Department of Astronomy, University of Minnesota
116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Minnesota Starwatch for April 2004

The naked eye planets continue their grand alignment in the western sky in April-Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in that order, from the western horizon to near the zenith.

Mercury is very faintly visible near the western horizon at dusk in early April. Brilliant Venus, now near its maximum brightness, continues to dominate the western sky and will pass close to the Pleiades in early April. On April 1st, Venus will be just south of the famous star cluster.

Orange-red Mars is much fainter than Venus and several degrees further east in the sky. Mars and Venus will both be close to the crescent moon on April 22nd.

Moving further east, Saturn is next in line and is high in the west-southwestern sky at dusk. The rings have their maximum tilt respect to our line of sight which makes for good viewing with a small telescope or binoculars. Saturn will be near the first quarter moon on April 24th.

Jupiter is the last in the line of naked eye planets and will remain bright in April. It will be just south of the gibbous moon on April 1st and 29th.

The moon is full April 5th, third quarter on April 12th, new on April 19th, and first quarter on April 27th.

Coming up in May-two potentially naked eye comets, although, both will be better situated for southern hemisphere observers.


Planets

Friday night telescope viewing at the U's Astronomy Department begins at 8pm.
Please call (612) 626-0034 for more information.

For fun Astronomy Outreach programs check out our Public Outreach link, or if you're interested in how you can help build the new Minnesota Planetarium, please call 612-630-6151 or visit http://www.mplanetarium.org.

Como Planetarium is offering fun family shows about astronomy on a limited basis; please call 651-293-5398 for more info! This has been a Minnesota Starwatch produced by the University of Minnesota Astronomy Department.