The Eta Aquariids meteor shower peaks on the morning of May 6. Saturn will be visible, just above the eastern horizon about two hours before sunrise. Just the same, it’s always nice to see both in the sky right after dinner. Mars on the other hand will only feature a magnitude of +1.3 and will pretty much look like a red star. Venus will be extremely bright (magnitude -4.1) and easy to see. Venus will be about 30° above the horizon and Mars is about 51° above it. May’s evening skies open up with Venus and Mars visible in the western skies. What you can look for in May’s Night Skies In fact, each one of the examples I chose for this article is the brightest member of three distinct galaxy groups. So, even though galaxies, (and other deep space objects), might appear to be close to each other on a sky chart, they might not be related to each other in any manner. And like our other two galaxies, M106 is the brightest member of the M106 Galaxy Group. M106 is 25 MLY from us and has a visual Magnitude of +8.31. It was added to the catalog by Helen Sawyer Hogg in 1947. M106 was not listed in Messier’s original catalog. M101 is the brightest member of the M101 Galaxy Group.Ī third bright galaxy lies just about and to the east of the Big Dipper’s Bowl. But, as you can see, its structure isn’t nearly as compact as M51’s, making this a more demanding object to view or photograph. The map includes the Moon, stars brighter than magnitude 5, the five. And with a visual magnitude of +7.8, it’s a little brighter than M51. Powered by Heavens Above, our interactive viewer charts the night sky as seen by eye. Looking at your sky chart, you’ll see another galaxy on the opposite side of Alkaid. It belongs to the Whirlpool Galaxy Group, (which was named after its brightest member). With a visual magnitude of +7.9, M51 is easy to see through a small telescope. Even though M51 appears to be close to Alkaid on a sky chart, it’s about 28 MLY (million light years) away from us.
#Moon in skychart series#
That means it’s part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Gifted mathematician Sue Finley played a vital role in a series of Nasa missions to send probes to the Moon to obtain images of the lunar surface, select a landing site for Apollo, and gain. Alkaid is about 105 light years from us and has a visual magnitude of +1.85. It can be found just above the first star in the Big Dipper’s handle, Alkaid. If you look at the Big Dipper constellation (Ursa Major) using a computerized star chart, it appears to be at the center of a large collection of galaxies! But looks can be deceiving–consider these three galaxies:
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