What's in the night sky in the week of 3 to 9 April, 2023 in our weekly stargazing guide. This week is a great opportunity to take a look at the full Moon, as well as watch Venus brush up against the Pleiades.
Chris Bramley Hello and welcome to Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine. You can subscribe to the print edition of the magazine by visiting skyatnightmagazine.com or digital edition by visiting on iTunes or Google Play.
Ezzy Pearson Greetings, listeners, and welcome to Star Diary, a weekly guide to the best things to see in the northern hemisphere's night sky. As we are based here in the UK all times are in BST. In this episode, we'll be covering the coming week from the 3 to 9 April. I'm Ezzy Pearson, the magazine's features editor, and I'm here to talk you through this week's stargazing highlights. And we start off this week a bit later into the week, on Thursday 6 April, when there is going to be a full Moon. That does mean that the full Moon is going to dominate throughout the week. So if you are looking to do some deep sky, observing the first half of the week is probably not going to be great for you. But 6 April gives us a full Moon, which is always a great opportunity to stop and take a look at our nearest celestial neighbour. As always happens with a full Moon, it will rise at around sunset and set at around sunrise. So it will be up all night, but it will be highest around about the middle of the night, about midnight. So if you are wanting to get out there and perhaps do some lunar photography around midnight is probably the best time that you are going to be wanting to get out there. 6 April is, of course, just before the Easter weekend, so you don't need to feel guilty about staying up until midnight or even beyond because hopefully you should have the Friday off and in fact, the rest of the weekend off afterwards. So it's a great chance to maybe get out there and do some longer observing and photography sessions, if you would like to. We have lots of guides about what you can take pictures of around the Moon – whether you want to take a look at some of the ray craters that are always brilliant to see when it's full or perhaps you want to take some wide-field shots or perhaps some nice skyscapes that you can see around about that time. So if that's what you're looking for, 6 April is going to be a great opportunity to be able to do that. But although the Moon does dominate the night sky in the early part of the week, by the time you get to 8 April, it does mean that the Moon isn't going to be rising until about 11:00, and on 9th it will be even later, more closer to midnight. And what that means is that you've got a good couple of hours of that evening sky to be able to get out there and do some deep sky observing. So if you do want to take advantage of that long Easter weekend and get out there to do some observing of the deep sky, then 8 and 9 April are going to be your best bet. If you're looking for some inspiration, then pick up a copy of the April issue of Sky at Night Magazine. As with every issue, we have a Deep Sky tour. This month it is going through the constellation of Cancer and several of the deep sky objects that you can see there. Starting at M44, the Beehive Cluster in the heart of Cancer. So this is a rich, large open cluster with around about 200 stars within it. It's actually big enough that it's visible to the naked eye, but you do need a really dark sky to be able to see that. And if you really want to get in there and appreciate what all of the different stars that are within it, you are going to need a telescope to be able to pick those out. So you might want to take the opportunity to get those out. Now from M44, the Deep Sky tour will take you around the sky until you finally arrive at M67, which is another open cluster about two degrees west of the star Acubens. M67 is a dimmer cluster than than the Beehive Cluster, M44. So it does tend to get overshadowed a bit. But it is still a beautiful sight to look through. It's got a diameter of around about 30 arcminutes, roughly equivalent to the size of the Moon. So if you want a bit of help about judging what field of view you need, something that would fit the full Moon and will fit the entirety of M67. Exactly how much of M67 you can see is going to depend on the size of your telescope. So a small telescope, something up to around about 150 millimetres of aperture that is going to be able to see around about 50 stars within it. If you're getting up to something larger, something more closer to around about 300 millimetres, that's going to start being able to see, you know, 100 or so stars within the cluster. But even if you do have a smaller one, you can still see quite a lot of going on. And then if you ever do upgrade later, you will have the opportunity to take a look back at M67 and see what an improvement your new piece of equipment has made.
And also, if you are up on 8 April taking advantage of the moonless skies in the evening, take a look towards the western horizon. And here you should hopefully see a very bright point of light, which is the planet Venus. Venus is a -3.9 magnitude at the moment. So apart from the Moon when it's up, it's the brightest thing in the night sky. And when the Moon is up, it is the brightest thing in the night sky. And at the moment it is passing just south of the Pleiades open cluster. So this is a very beautiful open cluster surrounded by this rich nebulosity. It's also called the Seven Sisters, because some people say that they can see seven stars within it. Some people say they can see more. Some people say they can see less. That's always an interesting little experiment to do. How many stars can you count within the Pleiades. Doing that, It's a good way to judge both how good your own eyesight is, but also how dark your skies are. So that's always an interesting experiment to run if you're ever out and observing. Venus is going to be passing under the Pleiades from 8 to 14 April. The closest approach is actually going to be at the beginning of next week when the pair are just 2.7 degrees apart. But on 8 and 9, they will still be pretty close together. Still be able to to see that those two together on the night sky, the pair are going to be setting at around about 11PM. So, again, lots of time to observe these two before the moon has come up. But the best time to see them is probably going to be an hour or so after sunset. At this point, they'll still be nice and high in the night sky. You should be able to see them very clearly. But true dark will have had time to set in, the sun will have gone down fully. So around about an hour after sunset is when you want to be looking for these two. They are both very clear naked eye objects. The Pleiades, the darker your sky, the better that you will be able to see it. But Venus, you should be able to see, even from the heart of London or some other light polluted city. So wherever you are, you should be able to see Venus. The Pleiades, you might want to be finding a nice dark spot to be able to see that if you've got a pair of binoculars that will make the site even better to be able to really get in there and see even more of the stars within the Pleiades, because it's called the Seven Sisters. And you might only see seven, but there are lots and lots of stars within that. So hopefully you should have found a couple of things there that caught your ear about what you'd like to view in the night sky, especially given that we have that nice long Easter weekend. So lots of opportunities to get out there and observe the sky. So on the 6th of April, the full moon will be up in the sky, but it will be getting out of the way on 8 April, and it won't rise until about 11PM. To give you some time to get out there and do some deep sky observing. And on 8 and 9 April as well, we will have Venus passing just south of the Pleiades open cluster. So hopefully you managed to find something in there that sparked your interest. Please do subscribe to the podcast to make sure you get your weekly updates on what's going on in the night sky. And we hope to see you here next week. If you want to find out even more spectacular sites that will be gracing the night sky throughout the month. Be sure to pick up a copy of BBC Sky at Night magazine, where we have a 16 page pull out sky guide with a full overview of everything worth looking up for. Whether you like to look at the Moon, the planets, or the deep sky, whether you use binoculars, telescopes or neither our sky guide has got you covered with detailed star charts to help you track your way across the night sky. From all of us here at BBC Sky and Night Magazine, goodbye.
Chris Bramley Thank you for listening to this episode of Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night magazine. For more of our podcasts, visit our website at www.skyatnightmagazine.com or head to aCast, iTunes or Spotify.
