NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 13-19 MAY 2019.

Night Sky This Week 13-19 May 2019.

Already approaching the middle of May, the days seem to fly by. I have had several nights of clear sky the last week, this is to be expected with the Winter skies over Durban. Let's hope the trend continues. Especially now that we get to gaze into the heart of the Milky Way as it arcs high overhead.

So let's take a look at what to expect from your Southern night skies for this coming week.

MOON AND PLANETS.

The Moon is at quarter phase and will be ramping up to the full phase by Saturday the 18th.
It will also be a "Blue Moon", usually there are three full Moon's during each of Earth's seasons but occasionally there is a fourth, when this happens the third full Moon for that season is called the Blue Moon since the first,second and fourth are already assigned traditional names. These Blue Moons occur once every 2.7 years.
So, there you have it, "Once in a blue Moon!"

The Planets are once again plentiful and early risers here in the Southern Skies so plenty to see.

The Early Evening Planets.
First up is Mars(Planet in Taurus), it has a short window from dusk before it sinks below your western horizon shortly after 7PM.
Jupiter(Planet in Ophiuchus) starts to rise just before 8PM and Saturn(Planet in Sagittarius) follows suit by 10PM
The Early Morning Planets.
Neptune(Planet in Aquarius) starts to rise shortly before 2 AM and is a telescope only planet.
Then we see Venus about two hours before dawn as it slowly starts to move back toward the Sun.

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

We have a ever brightening Moon starting to dominate our night sky, so back to Open Clusters(OC).
We take a look at two easy targets in NGC 6405 and IC 4665.

NGC 6405, Messier 6, Open Cluster in Scorpius, Magnitude +4.19.

The OC is included the the famous Charles Messier catalogue where it is designated as M6. It is also known as the butterfly cluster after Burnham described it as a charming arrangement of stars that appear as a butterfly with open wings.
The cluster lies at a distance of 1600light years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
The cluster itself consists of 80 stars spread over a 54 arc minute area.
It should be a easy star hop away from the nearby naked eye star Lambda Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius.

IC 4665, Open cluster in Ophiuchus, Magnitude +4.19.

This cluster was first discovered by the Swiss astronomer Phillippe Loys de Dheseaux in 1745.
It is missing from the NGC catalogue and is a rather large, open and coarse cluster with 30 stars.
It is however easily seen in binoculars and wide field scopes.
The cluster lies about 1300 light years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus.
It is a easy star hop from the close by naked eye star Beta Ophiuchi.

Image from Cartes Du Ceil.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION(ISS).

This week will see a few early evening passes, the table below shows the dates and times for Durban and is taken from the "Spot the station" website, a link to the webpage is under the "Useful Links" tab in the right hand column of this blog. There you can find the dates and times for your city or town.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Fri May 10, 6:13 PM	2 min	15°	10° above S	15° above SSE
Sat May 11, 6:58 PM	2 min	29°	10° above SW	29° above SW
Sun May 12, 6:07 PM	5 min	39°	10° above SSW	23° above E
Mon May 13, 6:55 PM	2 min	25°	23° above WNW	16° above N
Tue May 14, 6:02 PM	6 min	57°	10° above SW	10° above NNE
Thu May 16, 6:00 PM	1 min	16°	16° above NW	10° above NNW
Thu May 23, 5:28 AM	6 min	32°	10° above NNW	10° above ESE

So get out there under the night skies and look up!