the do

astronomy day and more hey there
stargazers

I'm Deanery guess astronomer for the
Cincinnati Observatory

and I'm james oberg director the key
cassava plop planetarium in Gainesville

Florida

mark Saturday May 10th on your calendar
as national astronomy day

a day when most astronomy clubs
planetariums

and Science Center's all across the
country will be celebrating stargazing

with all kinds of things astronomical
including

working through telescopes and usually
free of charge since 1973

national astronomy day has been observed
in April or May

on the Saturday closest to the first
quarter moon which will be

on the six this year now why do they do
that well

first quarter moons are always high in
the sky and

easily visible in early evening and
they're much more

interesting to observe through
telescopes for astronomy day

and they don't break in the sky so much
that other things like planets are

washed out

so Saturday close to a first-quarter
moon in May

when the weather is turning nice just
fits the bill soak our local planetarium

science center or astronomy club to see
what they're doing for astronomy day

and check our website stargazers online
.org for more info

and as they have for many years
astronomy magazine

and Celestron telescopes are once again
sponsoring astronomy day activities

all across the country with Celestron
providing telescopes as door prizes

and a grand prize winner will be chosen
from all across the country

for special telescope price now just
coincidentally

there are three planets available for
viewing just after sunset

end the moon will help you find them
well let's show it

okay we've got our sky set up for May
3rd about it hour after sunset

facing west we'll see the bright planet
Jupiter

which has been providing a spectacular
sky show for the past few months

just above jupiter it will find Castor
and Pollux the break twin stars in

Gemini

and below duper a waxing five-day-old
crescent moon

then on Sunday the 4th a slightly fatter
crescent moon will be just to the left

duper once again the third and the
fourth

if you keep on watching jupiter each
night over the next two months

you'll see something really unusual
let's look at jupiter

Ancaster and Pollux once more they make
a nice right triangle

don't they but over the next two months
Jupiter will rapidly move eastward in

the sky

each night and by the end of June as
jupiter is disappearing in the glow of

evening twilight caster pollack's n
Jupiter will be

almost in a straight line once again
right triangle

early in May straight line at the end of
June let's get back to the moon in the

other planets

if you watch every night next week
you'll see the moon move farther to the

east

each evening and on Saturday May 10
astronomy day

a fairly pudgy eleven-day old moon will
be about six degrees west of mars

and the next night May 11 the moon will
be East mars

and if you don't have a telescope most
astronomy clubs planetariums and science

centers will be showing you Jupiter

and Mars and the moon through their
telescopes on astronomy day

now we said there were three planets
that the moon will be showing you

what's turned the southeast after
enjoying mars

and the ringed planet Saturn will be
climbing higher in the sky

Saturn is brighter than it was at this
time last year

in fact it's brighter than it's been for
the past seven years

but why let's start by remembering the
big difference between the stars and

planets

stars produce their own light or what's
up while we see planets only because

they reflect the light

only one star the Sun planets like
senator really dinky when it comes to

showing lighten the sky

but since they're really close some
other planets can appear to be really

bright

now Saturn's rings are big part of the
reflecting surface that sends light from

the Sun

backed our way to the air the Rings do
not look the same all the time

in 2009 Saturn's rings were edge on to
us

and reflected very little and for a
short time

no white but that was over four years
ago

we'll be talking more about the change
in brightness a satyr and

upcoming episode stargazers at any rate

enjoy all the free events and free
telescopic doing on

national astronomy day it'll be a great
outing for the whole fam

keep looking up

s me

T