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Today we are going to be looking at the sky for mid and late May. Looking at the daytime sky on the 12th, the Moon is up and already getting close to new, we will have our New Moon on the 16th. With the Moon out of the sky for most of the night, viewing conditions are optimal for faint targets. Even with the Moon nearly new, it will only be up close to morning time, so for most of the evening the sky is going to be plenty dark. We will also take a look at the superior conjunction of Uranus.

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Before we look at that, we will leave the Sun set. We still have Venus and Jupiter coming out in the evening. Venus is pretty high when it emerges and it’s nice and bright, easy to see by just coming up to 10 o’clock, by about 9:45 they’re visible. At that time, Venus and Jupiter will both be visible and not much else. We are getting back into summertime, especially as we push later in May, so that’s going to keep the sky brighter for longer. Eventually, we reach the nighttime sky for mid May, once the sky is truly dark at pretty much 11 o’clock. We still have Virgo in the middle of the sky and we still have Leo in the southwest, not too much has changed from the beginning of the month. However, as we move towards the end of the month, the sky will be noticeably bright at 11 o’clock. We’re looking ahead to the night of the Full Moon because we will have our second Full Moon, our Blue Moon once we get to the end of May. By then, the sky is actually getting dark at quarter to midnight. This is at UTC +1, so our quarter to midnight is really quarter to 11 UTC and our local midnight will be at about 1 o’clock. If we push forward to that local midnight, Scorpius rises and Leo is already heading over to the west to set.

If we remain at the same time and come back a little bit closer to today, Scorpius is just barely coming up, and Leo is much more visible. This is largely because the Sun is setting earlier and earlier as we come through May, while we also continue to move around the Sun. This can make the sky seem like it’s changing faster over the course of the summer. This is really just our sky getting dark later, which means the Earth has more time to turn and move around the Sun before we get to see darkness again, before we get to see the stars. That’s an effect we’re going to have in the northern hemisphere as we continue pushing into summer. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, the effect would be reversed, their extra changeable sky would come a little bit later. While we are now on the moonless night of the 16th, this is going to be a short night as we’re getting into summertime, but it is a moonless night. Once the sky gets completely dark, it will be truly completely dark. Even then, looking at 11:30 / 11:40 and we’re just losing that sunset glow. Not even losing it entirely, there’s still a little bit in the north, we’ll have to push even closer to midnight for that glow to vanish entirely. Once we get into June and July, that glow will no longer vanish entirely. That glow will stay with us all night long in just a couple of months time. If you do manage to get out into the countryside, this time of the month, on the 16th of May, that’s going to be one of the best times to head out to the countryside due to the lack of moonlight.

In keeping with a trend of me discussing dark skies, I’m not basing the countryside view on a pristine number 1 sky. Instead, we’ll go as far as a Bortle Class 2 sky, which is just enough for bits of the Milky Way to be visible. It’s not perfect, but perfect is often the enemy of good. If you can’t find a perfect pristine dark sky to take a look at things, a reasonably dark sky is good enough, as long as you get away from the city lights. As long as you go somewhere a little bit darker, you’ll get to see a little bit more. Of course, if you go somewhere a lot darker, you’ll get to see a lot more. For a fairly dark sky, the glow of the Milky Way is up just coming up to our physical midnight at a little after 1 o’clock. Just after midnight, the Milky Way is getting into the sky. Summertime is technically the best time to see the glow of our galaxy because it’s going to rise closer and closer to midnight as we get closer and closer to midsummer, but of course, the nights are so short and eventually we will have some light in our sky all night long. May is one of the best times to go and look for the glow of the Milky Way, it’s up reasonably early and the glow in our sky hasn’t breached all the way through to nighttime. Of course, just after summer there is a similar effect, but the Milky Way will be further to the west, making it closer to the glow of sunset and keeping it in the sky for a shorter length of time in even though the nights will be getting longer.

While we’re looking at the sky slightly earlier in the evening, there is still some light into our sky back towards the north. Looking at the opposite side of the sky, to the south, this won’t have too much of an effect. Spica will be there in the south, you can find it by following the arc of the Plough to Arcturus and spiking onto Spica. Spica is in the constellation of Virgo, and just to the west we’ve got the much easier to recognize shape of Leo. There’s a wonderful collection of galaxies just between those two constellations as you move from Leo into Virgo. If we take a closer look just at the boundary between those constellations, we’ll start to see some fuzzy shapes. Once you start seeing those fuzzy shapes, taking a closer look is what will reveal them to be galaxies. Very often good binoculars is enough to show that there are fuzzy shapes, but a telescope of course, will be necessary to recognize them as galaxies. The glow of the Sun is back in the north, very close to the Andromeda galaxy, which is going to make Andromeda a little bit harder to see as we come through summertime. However, the galaxies that are near the handle of the Plough or the Big Dipper, they’re pretty much up in the zenith at this time of the night at this time of year, which means you’re looking through the least amount of atmosphere to see them, that’s going to improve your view as well. This time of year when the sky is actually dark and the Moon is out of the way, it is one of the best times to go looking for things in the sky. Thankfully the weather hasn’t been too bad lately, so hopefully we will have some clear skies.

Now we’re going to take a look at something that clear skies will not reveal, we’re going to look at the superior conjunction of Uranus with the Sun. We’ll need to move forward to the 22nd and look at the daytime sky with no atmosphere. Uranus is just east of the Sun, about to line up with the Sun, as the Sun sets in Ireland. With the ground out of the way, we can follow this through to being a proper solar conjunction. There is a syzygy of the Earth, the Sun and Uranus, they totally, completely line up. Superior conjunctions can happen to any planet. Inferior conjunctions can only happen with planets that are closer to the Sun. Uranus being further from the Sun than we are, it will line up with us and the Sun with the Sun in between us and it will line up with us and the Sun behind us when it comes around to opposition. Opposition is the best time to see these planets. Superior conjunction, is the worst because you can’t see them, the Sun is in the way. Even with imperfect conjunctions where the planet is below or above the Sun from our perspective, it’s still far too close to the Sun for us to see. There have been a lot of detailed observations of the Sun recently, there are a lot of solar flares at the moment and there is a lot of warranted excitement about solar flares and the aurorae. This means there are telescopes pointing at the Sun. There always are, telescopes that study the Sun and look for things happening in its atmosphere. Those satellites are going to catch Uranus as it moves behind the Sun, as it gets occulted, and then a couple of hours later when it pops out the other side.

Uranus, of course, is orbiting the Sun, but it’s moving incredibly slowly, its year is 84 Earth years, so its motion through the sky is mostly down to us moving around the Sun. We’re moving around the Sun so much faster, Uranus’s position appears to change because of our position changing. That’s why it seems to slowly move out the other side of the Sun, it would be a very different thing with faster moving planets like Mercury and Venus. If you’d like to know a little bit more about solar conjunctions, we took a look at the solar conjunction of Saturn just a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago, so that’s there for you to check out. Of course, it’s not something that we actually get to see.

Thankfully, we do get to see the glow of the Milky Way, as long as we’re in the countryside, and other faint objects on the 16th thanks to the New Moon. I hope that you get a chance to see some of these interesting things and I hope that you enjoyed this piece. If you did enjoy it then please do like it and please do subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel if you haven’t already. If you know of anyone who might enjoy this content, please share it with them. Most importantly, thank you for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.