What's Up In The Night Sky - May

Fred Barrett | May 01, 2014

By Fred Barrett

Oh, the frustration! The grief and stress of suffering bad weather can be so upsetting for an amateur astronomer! I said “Good Grief!” (among other words) many times the night of the Lunar eclipse. It was a no show and sat sadly out of sight above heavy clouds. But the consolation prize is that there are three more eclipses happening before 2015. I’ll be sure to give you plenty of warning.

This month there are two meteor showers, or to be more accurate, one predicted shower and one possible new one. The predicted shower is called the Eta Aquarids. It’s named that because its “radiant” is in the constellation Aquarius. When the paths of all its observed meteors are traced back, they originate in the constellation Aquarius and therefore, we say that its “radiant” is in Aquarius. The brightest star in Aquarius is called Eta and contributes to the shower’s name. Its peak occurs around 2 a.m. on the night of May 5 and 6. About 30 meteors per hour are expected. At 66 kilometers per second, they are moving quite fast. Since Aquarius only sneaks a bit above the eastern horizon, there may be a lot of meteors that just graze the Earth. These Earthgrazers skim horizontally for long distances through the atmosphere and are spectacular. The waxing gibbous Moon sets about midnight and viewing conditions will be excellent. It’s interesting to note that this shower is 1 of 2 meteor showers connected to Halley’s Comet. Comet Halley leaves a trail of dust and debris along its orbit around the Sun and when the Earth punches through this trail, we see a meteor shower. In October, Earth passes through this debris field again and we call that meteor shower the Orionids.

On the night of May 23/24 we may have an opportunity to witness a new meteor shower! The radiant will be near the North Star Polaris just above the constellation Camelopardalis which can be found between the Big Dipper and the W shape of Cassiopeia. This would make the shower the Camelopardalids – quite a mouthful. This shower may even match the numbers of meteors that are typical of the Geminid and Perseid showers, the two best showers of the year. Near the end of May, a small comet called 209P/Linear will pass by Earth closer than any other comet in history – about 9 million kilometers or 5.4 million miles. As near as can be calculated, the Earth will pass through its debris trail on May 23/24. The comet has a 5.04 year long orbit with its farthest point from the Sun (aphelion) close to the orbit of Jupiter and its nearest point (perihelion) close to Earth’s orbit. Jupiter’s gravity perturbs its orbit and this creates many dust trails and they all converge at perihelion near the Earth’s orbit. A waning crescent Moon will rise about 3 a.m. and won’t be bright enough to interfere with seeing the meteors. The meteors will be bright and slow moving, about 18 km per second. Let’s hope that we get lots of them! Don’t forget to dress warmly and bring a chair or lay out a blanket on the ground. Get comfortable and look straight up. I’ve mentioned before that meteors can appear anywhere in the sky with their trails pointing back to the radiant. Looking at the radiant isn’t really necessary.

On May 3, the Moon will be about nine degrees below Jupiter soon after sunset and about eight degrees left of it on the 4th. The moon is right of Mars between the 12th and 14th early in the evening. The full Moon this month is on the 14th and is called the Flower Full Moon. We had enough rain in April so we better get lots and lots of flowers! Watch for the Moon to be about two or three degrees above Venus in the east just before sunrise on the 25th. The new Moon occurs on the 28th.

Jupiter diminishes slightly in size and brightness during May. At the start of the month it is half way up in the west at sunset but gets closer to the horizon by the end of May. On May 23rd (8:57pm) and 30th (10:57 pm), Jupiter appears to only have one moon instead of the usual four. They will temporarily be hidden behind Jupiter.

Saturn will be in opposition on May 10th. It will rise around sunset and sets just after sunrise.

Get your binoculars out and search about 10 degrees under the handle of the Big Dipper during the first two weeks of May for a new Comet PanStarrs. A small telescope would be better. The comet will head farther south of the bowl of the Dipper as the month progresses.

If you have questions or suggestions, Fred Barrett may be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Beginner’s Observer’s Guide by Leo Enright is available at the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy or by contacting the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada www.rasc.ca/publications, subscriptions for our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine, Sky News, are also available from RASC..