Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to take a look into the month of April to see what will be coming up in the sky. Taking a look firstly sunset on the 1st of April, Venus is nice and bright to the West, and also quite far from the Sun in the sky, so it will be nice and easy to see. Jupiter is still coming out nice and early. They’re both visible at about 8:50 and the sky is still quite bright, we’ll have to wait until significantly later for the sky to actually get dark.

Even by 9:15, there’s still a little bit of light. By the time it’s truly dark, Venus has left the sky, by about 9:45. We can still see Jupiter in Gemini and Orion just below, all now more towards the southwest than the south, with Leo starting to come up towards the south as darkness falls. The Moon is going to be full on the 1st of April, no joke. We’re seeing it here at 99.9 percent full, and that’s just about the fullest that we’re going to get to see it here in Ireland. We’ll be getting our New Moon pretty close to the 17th, so around the middle of the month will be the best time to look for fainter objects like the Milky Way and galaxies.

Moving forward towards morning time, from here in Ireland, there’s a good chance that we won’t see too much. This is despite the fact that the planet Mercury is coming up to its greatest western elongation, which is when we should be able to see it in the morning. Getting rid of the atmosphere and moving a little bit closer to sunrise, Mercury, Mars and Saturn come into view, all next to the sun as the Sun rises. Just around the 3rd, Mercury reaches its greatest elongation. It then starts getting closer to the Sun in the sky from our perspective, moving in retrograde. Unfortunately, due to the angle at which we’re seeing these planets from here in Ireland, we’re not going to get to see Mercury, even at its greatest elongation, simply because of the light of the Sun, and it’s not the only thing we’re missing. If we continue moving forward day by day, the planets move, leading to a triple conjunction. Mercury, Saturn, and Mars all come together on the 20th of April. Taking a closer look, Neptune is out there as well, pretty close to the other planets, but not in a line with the other three. If we move back a few days, on 16th the Moon is quite close to the planets. It’s almost new, so we do have our New Moon pretty much on the 17th. On the 16th, it’s just a tiny Crescent Moon with Saturn, Mars, Neptune and Mercury all together in the sky. That’s not going to be visible from here in Ireland, just because those planets will be too close to the Sun and too close to the horizon for us to actually see them. Once I turn back on the atmosphere they all get wiped out, except for the Moon, it would just about be visible.

We will hop down towards the equator to take a closer look at those objects from a location where they should actually be visible. Before that however, we’ll move to sunset a little bit later in the month. As we get later in the month, Uranus and Venus draw closer together, so Venus also gets close to the Pleiades. As we move forward, we’ll see a very close conjunction between Venus and Uranus on the 23rd of April. The planets are close together for a couple of days, and Venus then, of course, is very close to the Pleiades as well. This, or at least the Venus portion of this, might be visible from our location here in Ireland. Venus is definitely visible at sunset while it’s right next to Uranus, but by the time the sky gets dark enough for Uranus to also be visible, even without the trees in the way it would be very close to the horizon. Again, this is something that should look better from closer to the equator.

We’re going to jump down to lower latitudes. We’ll stick to the northern hemisphere to start with, but we’re going to jump down a little bit closer to the equator. To start with, we’ll come down to Southern Europe, about 40 degrees north. To give ourselves the best possible chance of seeing what we want, we’ll get rid of any trees or buildings that could block our view, as if we were looking at these things from the coast. This lets us see Venus and the Pleiades and Uranus, still above the horizon as the Sun is going down. It’s dark enough to point a telescope at Uranus, but of course, when it’s this close to the horizon, there is going to be a lot of atmosphere in the way. Given that we’re closer to the equator, we can see Uranus and Venus much higher in the sky while there’s still a reasonable level of darkness. It’s also clear that they’re definitely in Taurus, just underneath the Pleiades and a little bit closer to the Pleiades than the Hyades. Of course, Venus is so bright, its position in the sky is going to be obvious as long as it’s above the horizon and it’s dark enough.

Moving forward to morning time, we’ll come back to the 20th for the multiple conjunction, but first we’ll come back to the 3rd to check on Mercury’s greatest elongation. At its greatest elongation, Mercury is visible, but even from this still northern latitude, but more southerly northern latitude, we’re not getting to see that wonderful close conjunction of the planets. We’ll need to go a little bit closer to the equator. We still won’t go all the way just yet, we’ll stay in the Northern hemisphere, coming down to 22 degrees north. Early in the morning, a little earlier due to the latitude, the sky is dark enough to see Mercury, Saturn and Mars. They are very close together around the 18th and 20th. Pulling back to the 16th when the Moon would be there, Mars, Mercury and Saturn are still visible. Neptune, of course, is right out there as well. This conjunction is visible from the Northern hemisphere, but much closer to the equator. We’re going to come back to Mercury’s greatest elongation, and from this close to the equator Mercury’s greatest elongation would be quite easy to see. It’s definitely up before the Sun, it’s visible as a bright dot and it will get high enough, just barely high enough, that you could maybe point a telescope at it before things get too bright for that to be safe. As we move forward, Mars is getting further from the Sun and being almost outstripped by Saturn. It’s going to take a while for Mars to actually move far enough from the Sun to be easily visible, certainly from our more northerly latitude here in Ireland.

We’ll bring up the Sun and come back to the date of Mercury’s greatest elongation, the 3rd. We’ll also come back to our default location here in Ireland, and we’ll turn off the atmosphere to take a look for a comet. We’re going to talk more about the comets that are visible in April once we get through to the next piece. However, just by the Sun is comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS). It’s getting its closest position to the Sun just around the 4th of April. It’s going to be moving away from the Sun as we get further into April, which should bring it into a position where it’s going to be visible through binoculars. It’s not the only comet that is getting close to the Sun, having its perihelion and moving in to a position where it should be visible from the Earth during the month of April, there is more, but we’re going to talk about that next time.

For now, we’re going to move all the way back to the end of the month through to the 23rd. This is around the time that Venus and Uranus would be having their close conjunction. The Moon and Jupiter are also very close together on those dates. We’re going to move a bit later than sunset, we’re already close enough just coming up to 11 o’clock. The summer triangle is starting to come above the horizon and we’re looking for the Lyrid meteor shower. The Lyrid meteor shower radiates from around the constellation of Lyra, which is one corner of the summer triangle, with the star Vega. Even as early as 11, the rate of meteors is 0-86. This is a variable shower that could give 0-90. We’re catching them pretty close to the peak, but low in their sky. They’re at the peak while the sky is still bright for us here in Ireland but they are above the horizon. By the time the sky is dark and by the time they’re a little higher in the sky, the actual zenith hourly rate will go down, but we can see more of them thanks to the higher position in the sky. We should be getting up to the 30s as we come up to earlier in the morning. They’re a little bit lower, closer to the 20s, while we’re still in the evening. The Lyrids, they are a variable shower, I think around the 25 or 30 is the expected zenith hourly rate for them this year, which means we’d get a little bit less again here in Ireland, but that is a meteor shower coming up at the end of the month.

That’s a few of the important events coming up in April and also where they will be visible from. Although we will get to see a few planets from here in Ireland, the really good conjunctions are going to to be reserved for people closer to the equator. There are also a couple of comets in the sky which we will talk about next time. I hope that you enjoyed this piece, if you did then please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for reading, and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.