April 3, 2024: Look for earthshine on the moon before sunrise. Bright Jupiter is in the west after sundown.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:29 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:19 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
Eclipse Projection
During Monday’s solar eclipse, it is fun to look at the sun through safe eclipse glasses. There are other ways to monitor the progress of the partial phases. The easiest is to project the sun’s image through an aperture or opening.
Previous articles about eclipses have described how to make solar projectors. The advice has been to make openings as small as possible.
During the October 2023 annular eclipse, NASA volunteers at Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico distributed a card that promoted a space agency mission. It has three openings – triangle, square, and circle. The round aperture is about one-quarter of an inch in diameter, hardly the pinhole that has been promoted here.
During the partial eclipse all three projected crescent phases, clearly demonstrating that any shape with a reasonably small opening can produce a solar eclipse crescent.
Summaries of Current Sky Events
Summary for Venus as a Morning Star, 2023-24
Here is today’s planet forecast:
Morning Sky
Morning Earthshine
An hour before daybreak, the crescent moon, 36% illuminated, is about 10° above the southeast horizon. The phase is bright enough to illuminate the ground and produce shadows.
Look for earthshine, a soft glow on the moon’s night side between the lunar horns or cusps. The effect is from sunlight reflecting from Earth’s oceans, clouds, and land.
Earthshine is easily photographed. A tripod-mounted camera works best, although, if held steadily, a dramatic image can be captured. From exposures lasting a few seconds, an over-exposed lunar crescent is adjacent to the earthshine. Together, the entire moon’s globe is visible.
Morning Planets
Saturn and Venus are not visible this morning. Saturn rises earlier each morning. The first opportunity to see it occurs in a week. Venus heads toward superior conjunction with the sun in nearly two months.
Attempt to look for Mars through a binocular. The Red Planet rises 72 minutes before the sun. About thirty minutes later, it is over 5° above the east-southeast horizon, a long way from a primetime performance.
Evening Sky
Bright Jupiter in West
Mercury is overtaking Earth, passing between our planet and the sun in 8 days. Now too dim and setting 62 minutes after the sun, the planet is not visible.
Bright Jupiter is the easiest bright planet to locate, although it is beginning a slide toward brighter twilight. At an hour after sundown, the Jovian Giant is less than 20° above the western horizon.
Jupiter is trekking eastward in front of Aries, noticeably east (or above) an imaginary line from Hamal, the Ram’s brightest star, to Menkar, Cetus’ nostril.
Use a binocular to inspect the Pleiades cluster and the Hyades star cluster with Aldebaran, Taurus’ brightest star nearby. Place Jupiter at the center of field of view to look for a few of its largest satellites that hang very close to the planet.
Jupiter, Uranus through Binocular
Planet Uranus is fairly easy to locate in the same binocular field with Jupiter. After looking for Jupiter’s moons, move the binocular slightly so that Jupiter is toward the bottom. Look for Rho Arietis (ρ Ari on the chart) to Jupiter’s lower right and toward the edge of the field. Notice that the star appears inside a triangle made by three dimmer stars. Stars Delta (δ Ari) and Zeta (ζ Ari) appear to the upper right. Notice their contrasting colors.
This evening Jupiter, Delta and Zeta are nearly along a diagonal line from the lower left to the upper right. Dimmer Stars 53 and 54 are along that line as well. Number 53 has a hue similar to Zeta, while 54’s nearly matches Delta.
Planet Uranus is to 53’s upper left and 54’s left. The aquamarine planet is slightly brighter than 53 and 54, but dimmer than the other named stars. A telescope is needed to see the planet’s globe.
Jupiter is overtaking Uranus, but the pair is lower in the sky each evening. Jupiter passes by on the 20th, but they are lower in the sky than tonight.
This evening Jupiter sets less than three hours after sundown.
Tomorrow morning, the moon rises less than two hours before sunup. It is low in the southeast during morning twilight.
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