2024, May 28: Find Hercules after Sundown

May 28, 2024: Hercules and its famous star cluster are visible after nightfall.  The gibbous moon, Saturn, and Mars are in the sky before sunrise.

Messier 13: The globular cluster in Hercules. (Photo credit: NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Institute)
Photo Caption – Messier 13: The globular cluster in Hercules. (Photo credit: NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Institute)

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by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 5:20 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 8:17 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

2024, May 28: Mars, Saturn, and the gibbous moon are strung across the sky from the east, outlining part of the plane of the solar system.
Chart Caption – 2024, May 28: Mars, Saturn, and the gibbous moon are strung across the sky from the east, outlining part of the plane of the solar system.

An hour before sunrise, the gibbous moon, Saturn, and Mars are lined up along an arc that approximately marks the plane of the solar system, known as the ecliptic.

The lunar orb, 75% illuminated, is less than 25° above the southern horizon and over 40° to the right (or west) of Saturn.  During the next several mornings, watch the moon’s eastward motion carry it past the morning planets.

Saturn is easier to see each morning.  It is about the same altitude as the moon and nearly 25° above the east-southeast horizon. Saturn and the moon are close together in three mornings.

Mars continues to open a gap with Saturn after their conjunction last month.  This morning the Red Planet is over 10° above the east horizon.  What seems to be a painfully-slow appearance, the planet continues to emerge from the predawn light after its solar conjunction during November 2023.  In two mornings, it rises before the beginning of morning twilight, over two hours before daybreak. The moon is nearby on June 2nd and 3rd.

Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter are in bright sunlight and not visible by conventional means.

Evening Sky

Hercules after Sundown

2024, May 28: Hercules is high in the eastern sky during the early evening.
Chart Caption – 2024, May 28: Hercules is high in the eastern sky during the early evening.

With the bright solar system bodies west of the sun and in the morning sky, several bright stars are visible after sundown.  They are markers to help find famous, but dimmer constellations.

As darkness falls, look for bright Vega in the northeast.  Then locate topaz Arcturus high in the southeast.  Hercules the Hero is about one-third of the way from Vega to Arcturus. Most of its stars are dimmer than those in the Big Dipper. 

The Hero is upside down, indicated by Rasalgethi – meaning “kneeler’s head” – at the bottom of the pattern. In mythology, Hercules is famous for his 12 Labors or Tasks to gain his freedom from slavery.

Globular clusters are inherently beautiful objects, but the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Messier 3, is commonly acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of them all. (NASA/ESA Photo)
Photo Caption -Photo Caption – Globular clusters are inherently beautiful objects, but the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Messier 3, is commonly acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful of them all. (NASA/ESA Photo)

For sky watchers, the most famous part is known as The Keystone, marking his waist and knees. Far beyond these stars is a famous star cluster, known as Messier 13 (M13 on the chart), the 13th item on Charles Messier’s list of fuzzy-appearing celestial bodies resembling comets.  At 21,000 light years, the stellar bundle is known as a globular star cluster as it appears as a blob of thousands of stars. In his Celestial Handbook, Robert Burnham wrote, “No very reliable count can be made in the [star cluster’s] central core where innumerable images merge into a great glowing mass, but it seems certain that the total population cannot be less than a million stars.  The total [intrinsic brightness of the entire cluster] is over 300 thousand times the sun, and a mass is equal to half a million suns” (p. 982).

The dazzling stars in Messier 15 look fresh and new in this image from the NASA/Hubble Space Telescope, but they are actually all roughly 13 billion years old, making them some of the most ancient objects in the Universe.
The dazzling stars in Messier 15 look fresh and new in this image from the NASA/Hubble Space Telescope, but they are actually all roughly 13 billion years old, making them some of the most ancient objects in the Universe. (NASA Photo)

Messier 13 revolves around the galaxy outside the plane, where the sun and the other bright stars in the night sky reside.  A 20th century map of similar clusters demonstrated that the center of the galaxy is located behind Sagittarius’ stars.

Orion Nebula (NASA Photo)
Photo Caption – Orion Nebula (NASA Photo)

During the winter months, the Orion Nebula is one of the first bodies sky watchers look for and during the warmer months, Messier 13 is a popular target.  To the unaided eye in a dark location on moonless nights, like this evening, the cluster appears as a fuzzy star along the western edge of The Keystone.  Through a telescope a nearly-solid mass appears along with a sprinkling of stars toward the outer edges.  If you attend a star party at a public night at a local planetarium or an open house held by the local astronomy club, ask for a view of the cluster.

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