Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to be taking a look at the month of May generally. We will be looking generally at the month of May and taking a look at the phases of the Moon during different parts of the month as well.

Just in case you didn’t catch it a couple of pieces ago, the Eta Aquariids are currently running. They peak on the 6th of May, so they are peaking on the date that this piece is getting posted, but I do believe that they really hit their peak early this morning. That’s why I discussed them a week ago. If you do want to learn about the Eta Aquariids then you can take a look back to the article all about them, and you may catch some of them tonight as well, they are still running. Today we will be focussing on the Moon, the planets and the constellations that we’re seeing at the moment. We are also getting closer and closer to summertime. As of May 1st, we have passed the cross-quarter day, so we are now closer to the summer solstice than we are the spring equinox.

Looking at the sunset early in the month, Jupiter is still visible as the Sun is going down for really most of the month, but very low to the horizon and likely to be obscured by trees or buildings. Thankfully, Jupiter is so bright that it will be visible until just before it disappears behind something, and if you do have a clear view of the horizon, it will still be there. It appears closer to the horizon as we get later in the month, so do need quite a clear western horizon to pull it off. The radiant for the Tau Herculids is up as the Sun sets as well, but those won’t be peaking until we get into June itself. Mars is with us for the entire month, but by the time we’re through to the end of the month, by the time the sky is fully dark, Mars is quite low. It’s still going to be above most obstructions, so it’s not going to completely disappear from view for this month at all.

We’ll move forward to the night of the Full Moon just to see how things will look. It looks like 99.7 ot 99.8 is about as full as the Moon is going to get for us here in Ireland this month. The Full Moon that we’re getting in May, we’re going to see it on the 12th. Of course it is nice and bright and full, but if we take a look at the distance, it’s pretty much a Micro Moon. This Full Moon is about as far away from the Earth as the Moon can get, 400,000 kilometers away, give or take a little bit. This Moon is about as far away from us as it’s going to get and that of course makes the Moon a little bit fainter, but not by much. This is the exact opposite of the Super Moon, the Super Moon is a little bit brighter and bigger, the Micro Moon is a little bit smaller and fainter, but these things really only make much of a difference during eclipses and we’re not getting any eclipses this month.

As the Sun is going down in the early part of May, Taurus, Orion and those other winter constellations are pretty much disappeared. We’ve still got Gemini, and the Twins will be with Mars for another day or two, but looking ahead to the middle of the month, Mars is definitely moving across Cancer and into Leo. It helps to use Stellarium to bring up the constellations because Cancer the Crab is not really that visible from the city. Even if we completely get rid of the glow of sunset, from a city like Cork City, we’re just not seeing any stars at all in the constellation of Cancer. Mars is really the easiest way to find Cancer the Crab at the moment, or it will be once we’re a little bit later into May. Soon, if you find Mars, you will have found Cancer the Crab. Leo the Lion is still very prominent, but it’s already reasonably far to the southwest once the sky gets dark. Virgo is now the constellation that’s due south once the sky is dark, and of course we have to wait until quite late for it to get dark.

By mid May, absolutely by 10 o’clock it’s still quite bright, it’s still very much daytime for us here in Ireland. We’re starting to get some stars, but the sky is still quite bright and this isn’t just because of the time or how close we are to sunset. Really, it’s the fact that the Sun is setting at such a steep angle, it’s not very far below the horizon, it is only just after crossing that threshold, so the sky will stay quite bright until quite late. That will only get worse as we move later into the month, by the end of this month the Sun is barely going to be completely set for any portion of the night. Also dues south, under Virgo, we can see Corvus there as a kind of diamond shape.

Moving a little bit closer to midnight, coming up to 11 o’clock, we’re not going to get any more planets in the evening, we’ll have to wait until morning time for those. We do still have some famous constellations and we can certainly see part of Aquila the Eagle. Altair isn’t quite above the horizon yet, but most of the Summer Triangle is. Just a little bit after sunset Altair will rise, it will be a bit faint due to the atmospheric extinction low in the sky, but if we zoom in a little bit we can see Altair in the Eagle. The Summer Triangle, Vega, Deneb and Altair, are all definitely above the horizon by the time we’re through to midnight. Of course, they’d have to be above the horizon by then, but even though it is midnight, it’s also just a little bit after the sky gets truly dark.

Also already risen once the sky gets dark, we’ve got Corona Borealis. Corona Borealis is going to be up in a prominent position and we are still waiting for a supernova in that constellation, which should occur roughly at the bottom left of the Crown in the near future. That nova is still in the offing, it hasn’t happened yet, but we are expecting it to happen. It may be a good thing that the supernova hasn’t happened yet. If it does happen, it may be better that it happens during this time of year when Corona Borealis is up away from the sunset for plenty of the night, as it is now. A couple of months ago, Corona Borealis was open almost behind the Sun. Over winter, when the Sun was in front of Ophiuchus and Scorpius, Corona Borealis was pretty much behind and above the Sun. However, the Sun has now come almost the whole way around again to the opposite side of the zodiacal circle of constellations.

Through to the morning sky, in the city we don’t get to see the glow of the Milky Way, and of course, with the Moon will be there and close to full in the middle of the month. We certainly won’t see see the Milky Way from the city, even quite early in the month, though still in the future from the current date, the Moon is quite close to full. Even in the countryside, the Milky Way may be difficult to see for the middle part of the month just because the Moon is passing through the part of the sky that the Milky Way is in. The Milky Way does look pretty good at the beginning of May, the sky was so similar at the beginning of this month as it was to the end of April, if you saw the video looking at the night sky in the end of April, then you’ve already seen a little bit of how the sky would look in the early part of May. The Milky Way would of course be up in the sky in the morning, stretching from Sagittarius and Scorpius, up through Scutum and through the Summer Triangle, then curving across the sky through Cepheus and Cassiopeia, finally down towards Perseus as it disappears, or at least seems to disappear as it gets fainter.

We will head out to the countryside, but we’ll head back to the early part of the evening first. Of course, if you get the chance to head out to the countryside this time of year, because we are so close to summertime, you do have less of the night to enjoy the dark skies, but because we are only in May, you do still get a few hours of true darkness. The glow of the Sun isn’t yet creeping up over the horizon, but even very late there’s already definitely still a bit of sunset glow. The portion of the sky low to the northwest is definitely brighter, even as late as 11 o’clock, due to the sunset glow. It’s a little after that that the glow actually disappears entirely. We’re left with no sunset glow, definitely by midnight. This may seem obvious, of course it’s truly dark in the middle of the night, but soon we won’t have a truly dark sky even in the middle of the night. We’re still quite early in the month, so the Moon is not yet full, so a truly dark sky will be full of stars. We are even seeing some of the stars in Cancer the Crab here, but they don’t have a very clear, obvious shape like the Sickle in Leo, or like the two bright stars, Pollux and Castor, in Gemini. Then again, despite the bright Spica, the shape of Virgo isn’t very distinct either. Virgo at least is quite a big constellation and we do have that little rhyme, following the arc of the handle of the Plough or Big Dipper, arcing to Arcturus, and spiking onto Spica to find Virgo.

Even in the middle of the month, far from the peak of any meteor shower, you may see a meteor crossing the sky. By mid May the Eta Aquariid meteor shower, will definitely be over, but there’s still going to be meteors passing across the sky. Meteors happen all of the time, and especially in a dark sky you’re much more likely to see them.

Just before the Moon gets to full, it sets before the sunrise. This means there will be a time with no sunlight and no Moon in the sky. In the countryside, that lets us see the Milky Way, looking great at about 3:40 in the morning. The Milky Way is definitely very prominent by then, but we have to wait until then for the Moon to be out of the sky. As we come up to the Full Moon, we can see the Milky Way there disappearing. On the night of the Full Moon, the Milky Way blocked by just the moonlight, and as the Moon gets less full it crosses right in front of the core of the Milky Way, not an opportune position. By the end of the month we’ve got the Sun coming up at 3:40, so we’ll have to move earlier. By late May the Milky Way will be looking nice at 2:30, and of course it still looks pretty nice in the countryside from the moment the sky gets dark enough, at around midnight. The glow of the Milky Way is definitely visible a little after midnight, although we can’t see all of the core. All of the core, or pretty much all of the core, is up by a little after 1:00, and then the Milky Way stays visible until at least 3 o’clock. Just as we come to 3 o’clock we’ll see Saturn low to the east, the glow of sunrise, and then the Milky Way is gone by just 3:45. We are looking at a pretty narrow span of time there where the Milky Way is clearly visible, and that span of time will only get narrower and narrower, so we need to enjoy how visible the Milky Way is right now, while we can.

At the end of the month in the countryside, we’ve definitely got Saturn and Venus visible in the morning, moving back a little bit closer to the middle of the month and Saturn is still visible in the countryside, but this would be very tough to catch in the city. We have to wait for Saturn to get pretty far from the Sun for it to be visible in the city, whereas Venus is bright enough to shine through the sunrise glow. Venus is easy to see from the very beginning of the month all the way through to the end. Looking at the sunrise a little bit earlier in the month, we can definitely see Saturn if we’re in the countryside, but if we hop back into the city, and only as far as a city like Cork, it looks like Saturn is barely visible there and still quite low to the horizon. By the time it gets higher in the sky, it vanishes from view and we’re left with only Venus. Venus is at least going to stick with us for the entire month, as long as you’re out early enough.

So that’s a general overview of what we have to look forward to in the month of May, when the Moon is going to be in which places and how it’s going to look from the countryside. I do hope that you enjoyed this piece, if you did please do like it and if you like this kind of content then you can subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel to see more. Thank you very much for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.