April 17, 2024: After sundown, the bright gibbous moon is near Regulus, Leo’s brightest star. Find Mars and Saturn before sunrise and Jupiter after sunset.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:06 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:35 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
Summaries of Current Sky Events
Summary for Venus as a Morning Star, 2023-24
Here is today’s planet forecast:
Morning Sky
Morning Planets
Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn are west of the sun, rising in the eastern sky before daybreak. Venus slowly moves toward a solar conjunction and wide swing into the morning sky. It is lost in the sun’s light.
Mercury is moving into the eastern morning sky, but its appearance next month is disappointing.
The innermost planet passes Earth’s Twin in a wide conjunction in two mornings, but this is not visible because of their proximity to the sun.
At forty-five minutes before sunrise, Mars and Saturn are in the east-southeast. Saturn is over 7° above the horizon, and 4.4° to the upper right of Mars.
The gap between the two planets widens each morning. Mars marches eastward faster than the Ringed Wonder, making the separation larger.
The Red Planet is slightly brighter than Saturn, but its reddish hue mixes with the predawn light, making it difficult to see without a binocular. This morning it rises 79 minutes before the sun.
Saturn, rising two minutes earlier each morning, appears above the horizon eight minutes before Mars.
They fit into a binocular field of view for the next three to four mornings. Find a viewpoint with a clear, unobstructed horizon.
Evening Sky
Moon with Regulus
The bright gibbous moon, 72% illuminated, is high in the south after nightfall. It is in front of Leo’s stars, 7.1° to the upper right of Regulus, the Lion’s brightest star. Block the moon with your hand to see the star.
The moon reaches the Full phase on the 23rd at 6:49 p.m. Central Time. Pink is the name for this month’s bright moon.
Jupiter
Bright Jupiter is low in the west-northwest an hour after sundown. It moves eastward in front of Aries and below Taurus. The Pleiades star cluster is over 10° above the bright planet, although in this bright moonlight a binocular is needed to see them.
Topaz Aldebaran, the Bull’s brightest star, is about 20° to Jupiter’s upper left and nearly 25° above the west cardinal direction.
Bellatrix, dotting Orion’s shoulder to compliment famous Betelgeuse, is over 15° to Aldebaran’s upper left. The star’s name means “the female warrior.”
Jupiter is overtaking distant, dimmer planet Uranus. The planets’ altitudes and brightening moonlight is making this view more challenging. At less than 10° above the horizon, Earth’s atmosphere reddens, blurs, and dims celestial objects.
While looking toward the horizon, light travels through more air than when viewing a celestial object high in the south. This effect is evident when viewing the sun and moon when they rise or set. They are much redder (orange in appearance), flatter, and dimmer than when they are higher in the sky. Sunrise and sunset can be observed safely without eclipse glasses because of this filtering effect.
Secondly, moonlight washes across the sky to blot out dimmer stars. While Jupiter, Uranus, and the starfield are dimmed by the air’s filtering effects, the view is further degraded by the bright moonlight. Tonight’s view and those during the next few evenings leading up to the conjunction on the 20th are challenging.
The sun and moon appear larger when near the horizon from the air’s filtering effects. This appearance, known as the Moon Illusion, is not real.
Begin with Jupiter. Place it at the center of a binocular field of view. Jupiter’s four largest satellites are visible depending on the quality of the binocular and the sky watcher’s ability to hold it steadily. The moons look like stars near the planet. Europa is to Jupiter’s upper left, while Io, Ganymede, and Callisto are to the lower right. The planet and the moons are in a line.
Uranus is not far from Jupiter, 0.7° to the upper right. The planet is dimmer than Delta Arietis (δ Ari on the chart). It is brighter than 53 Arietis (53 Ari) and 54 Arietis (54 Ari), although they might not be visible.
Tonight, Jupiter sets less than two hours after the sun. The moon sets after midnight and over two hours before sunrise.
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