Saturday, April 25
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the deployment of the
Hubble Space Telescope. This groundbreaking observatory has played a crucial part in numerous discoveries in the decades since its first images, and remains one of astronomers’ best tools today.
According to James Fanson, project manager of the Giant Magellan Telescope currently under construction in Chile, “The Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy in the same way Galileo’s telescope did 400 years ago when first turned to the heavens. Hubble’s images reached the level of art, and its discoveries touched the imagination of ordinary people around the world. Hubble became the ‘people’s telescope,’ and it will always have a cherished place in our history and culture.”
You can celebrate Hubble’s success by challenging yourself to find one of its frequent targets: M1, also known as NGC 1952 or the Crab Nebula. This famous supernova remnant resulted from the death of a massive star; Chinese astronomers recorded the event in the year A.D. 1054, when a “guest star” briefly appeared in the nighttime — and daytime — sky. All that remains of the luminary is a tiny pulsar (a spinning neutron star) surrounded by what was once the atmosphere and interior of the star itself, now a tangled, glowing nebula.
Although the Moon is nearby, it’s a mere 7 percent lit, so a larger scope should still reveal the Crab’s faint, nebulous glow. Unlike the
highly detailed Hubble images, M1 appears only as a small thumbprint of light through an amateur scope, but it’s still a tantalizing target to search out for yourself. Tonight, the Crab sits a little less than 10° southeast of Venus, which provides an easy signpost on your way to finding the faint object.
Sunday, April 26
Uranus is in conjunction with the Sun at 5 A.M. EDT. Pluto is stationary at 9 A.M. EDT, ending its eastern trek across the sky. It will now begin tracking slowly to the southwest, back toward the center of the constellation Sagittarius.
The Moon passes 0.1° north of asteroid Vesta at 7 A.M. EDT; our satellite then passes 6° south of Venus at 11 A.M. EDT. By this evening, Venus is 7° to the right of the waxing crescent Moon. The pair is already shining in the eastern region of Taurus the Bull as darkness falls, with the V-shaped Hyades star cluster hanging below them. To the southeast lies Orion the Hunter, tilting low toward the western horizon as he and other favorite winter sky constellations finally begin to disappear from nighttime view.
Monday, April 27
Venus reaches greatest brilliancy at 2 P.M. EDT today, when it glows at magnitude –4.7. The planet is still 25° above the western horizon an hour after sunset and is now about 17° west of the Moon. Venus has slimmed down from a 46-percent-illuminated crescent at the start of the month to just 28 percent lit tonight. The planet’s apparent size has grown from 26" to 37" in the same timeframe.
Slide your eyes, binoculars, or scope an additional 18° west from Venus to take in the sparkling Pleiades (M45); Venus visited this dipper-shaped young cluster of stars earlier in the month.