April 1, 2024: Before sunrise, the moon appears to be in the Teapot. Mercury is leaving the western sky after its best evening appearance of the year.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:33 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:17 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
From Chicago’s latitude daylight lasts, 12 hours, 34 minutes. During April, daylight lengthens 127 minutes.
Summaries of Current Sky Events
Summary for Venus as a Morning Star, 2023-24
Solar Eclipse
In a week the moon shadow sweeps across a large swath of North America. Eclipse chasers converge on a thin ribbon of darkness where the sun is fully eclipsed. For a few minutes, the darkness reveals the sun’s corona, tortured and twisted by the sun’s magnetic field. Totality is a fleeting event.
Here is today’s planet forecast:
Morning Sky
April Teapot Moon
As eclipse day nears, the slightly gibbous moon, 58% illuminated, is less than 20° up in the south-southeast. The lunar orb is in front of Sagittarius’ brightest stars known as the Teapot. The moon seems to be in the pot’s spout.
The moonlight is bright enough to blot out the stars. Use a binocular to see the stars with the moon this morning.
The moon is at its morning half phase (Last Quarter) tonight at 10:15 p.m. CDT, before it rises in the Americas.
Morning Planets
Three planets are west of the sun, meaning they rise in the eastern sky before the central star, Mars, rising at 71 minutes before the sun, is over 5° above the east-southeast horizon 30 minutes later. Use a binocular.
Saturn is 15 minutes behind Mars. By the time it is high enough above the horizon, the sky is too bright to see it.
Venus, heading toward a conjunction with the sun in two months, rises 30 minutes before the sun. For reasonable sky watching, it is not visible.
Evening Sky
Goodbye, Mercury
Mercury is disappearing into evening twilight. For the next few evenings it loses about five minutes of setting time compared to sunset. The planet is dimming as it overtakes our planet, passing between Earth and Sun on the 11th.
To locate Mercury, find Jupiter, the bright star that is over 20° up in the west. It is brighter than all the stars this evening. Yes, Jupiter is lower in the sky each night. It loses four minutes of setting time each evening.
Mercury is to Jupiter’s lower right, over 5° above the west-northwest horizon. It is dim and challenging to see through the multi-hues of evening twilight. This is the last evening to easily see the innermost planet. For now, we say, “Goodbye, Mercury!”
Jupiter is trekking through an Aries starfield. It is nearly 15° to the upper left of Hamal, the Ram’s brightest star.
Jupiter and Uranus
Use a binocular to see Jupiter and Uranus in the same field of view. Initially, put Jupiter at the center of the field to look for up to four of the largest moons. Then shift the binocular so that Jupiter is toward the bottom of the field.
Use the accompanying chart to identify the starry background. Rho (ρ Ari on the chart), inside a triangle made by three dimmer stars, is to Jupiter’s upper right. Delta (δ Ari) is toward the upper right. Bluish star 53 (53 Ari) is near the center of the field of view. Topaz 54 (54 Ari), about the same color as Delta, is nearby. Uranus is to the upper left of 53 and to the left of 54. A telescope is needed to see the planet’s globe.
Each evening, Jupiter closes the gap to Uranus. It passes the more-distant planet on the 20th, but they are low in the western sky.
This evening Jupiter sets less than three hours after sundown.
The moon rises tomorrow morning over three hours before sunrise. As twilight begins it is east of the Teapot in the south-southeast.
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