Greetings everyone. We still have three planets in our sky, two are visible in the early morning sky and one is visible in the early evening.
Go outside at 5:30 a.m. any morning this week and face east. Measure three fist-widths to the right and two fist-widths up and you’ll find Jupiter and Saturn.
If you see a triangle of stars between the two planets, you’ve found the head of Capricornus the Sea Goat, because both planets are in that constellation.
You might still be able to see Mercury this week, but the speediest planet is circling to the other side of the sun from us and it will be very close to the eastern horizon. Draw a line between Saturn and Jupiter and follow the line down toward the horizon. Mercury will be on that line.
Venus is on the other side of the sun right now and it will be at superior solar conjunction today. That means that Venus, the Earth and the sun are lined up, with the sun in the middle and we can’t see Venus at all. Venus will reappear in our early evening sky in May.
Mars is in our evening sky right now and he’s easy to find. Just face west around 7:30 p.m. and measure five fist-widths up and two fist-widths to the right. You’ll see two bright red objects. The one on the left is Aldebaran, the 13th-brightest star and the bright red eye of Taurus the Bull. The one on the right isn’t a star; it’s Mars.
Argo Navis
We’ve been talking a lot about the Great Ship Argo Navis, the legendary ship sailed by Jason and the Argonauts and the huge star group is now due south.
Start with Sirius, the sky’s brightest star which is an easy find. It’s three fist-widths down from straight overhead to the south. Sirius is the head of Canis Major the Big Dog and that triangle of stars below Sirius is the Dog’s hind legs. To the left of Canis Major and extending south is a sweep of stars that now make the constellation Puppis the Stern of the Great Ship Argo Navis.
Canopus, the second brightest star, is another easy find in the southwest. Canopus is the brightest and westernmost star of Carina the Keel of the ship. The rest of the Keel lies low above the southern horizon. Above the Keel is a ragged circle of stars that we call Vela the Sails.
The Great Ship Argo Navis used to be the sky’s largest constellation, but it was broken into smaller pieces to make stellar navigation more precise. The parts are easier to see, however, if you view them as a single ship. There’s no bow, supposedly it was lost in the clashing rocks, and the ship sails silently backwards across our spring southern skies.
In the missing bow is an awesome star called Eta Carinae. Although it can’t be seen with the unaided eye now, in the mid-1800s, it was the sky’s third-brightest star. Eta Carinae is huge and extremely unstable and it has probably already become a supernova. Who knows, the light from the explosion may reach us in your lifetime.
Guam’s spring skies are awesome. We’ve got famous constellations, bright stars, planets and the largest ship in the universe. Don’t miss it.
Pam Eastlick is the Star Lady.
This article originally appeared on Pacific Daily News: Look for the Great Ship Argo Navis in southern sky
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