The Night Sky in April
Potentially a naked-eye comet, 12P/ Pons-brooks will be doing battle with the evening twilight during April. Your best chance of grabbing a view of it will be in the first half of the month. The comet will pass just to the south of the bright planet Jupiter on April 12-14. 12P/ponsbrooks reaches perihelion, the point where it’s closest to the Sun in its orbit, on April 21. This is when the comet receives the maximum energy from the Sun. Be aware that the comet appears small and is best seen with optical aids such as binoculars.
On April 20, bright Jupiter catches up with the dim and distant planet Uranus, both worlds in close conjunction together in the evening sky. Uranus is on the threshold of naked-eye visibility and the bright twilight will make the meeting difficult to see properly. The best chance of spotting them together is through binoculars but make sure the Sun has set first.
The constellation Virgo the Maiden is a large and sprawling pattern associated with spring in the northern hemisphere. In terms of area, it’s the second largest constellation in the full set of 88. The best way to locate it is to use the Saucepan (Plough) and extend the arcing handle of the saucepan away from the pan. Eventually you’ll arrive at the bright orange star Arcturus in Boötes the Herdsman. Keep the arc going and the next bright star you arrive at will be Spica, the brightest star in Virgo.
Virgo extends above, above-left and above right of Spica. Its most characteristic shape is an asterism – unofficial pattern – known as the Bowl of Virgo. If you imagine Spica at the base of a giant Y-shape, the bowl is the upper part of this pattern. If it helps, the height of the “Y” is similar to the length of the Saucepan.
The star at the bottom of the bowl is Porrima, a binary system with an orbital period of 169 years; both stars are of similar brightness and through a telescope can appear so close together that even professional telescopes are unable to separate them visually. This was certainly the case in the years either side of 2005, but now they are appearing to move apart and can be seen as two separate entities through backyard telescopes.
The area of sky above the bowl looks fairly bland to the naked eye. In this direction you’re looking out almost at right angles to the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. This means we’re seeing less in the way of “local” galactic material (gas, dust, stars, etc.) to get in the way of what’s beyond the Milky Way. Basically, in this direction we can see out into deep space.
In the area just north of the bowl lie two galaxy clusters; the Coma and Virgo galaxy clusters. A telescope is required to reveal the multitude of galaxies located here, each appearing as a quintessential “fuzzy blob” through the eyepiece. There are so many here that the region has been named the Realm of Galaxies. It’s in this direction that the giant elliptical galaxy M87, which had its central supermassive black hole imaged a few years back, is located.
There are many myths associated with Virgo but perhaps the most appropriate has her as Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Persephone was abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld. Angered, Demeter destroyed the harvests and the people began to starve. Zeus then agreed that Persephone would only spend a short time in the underworld each year. Demeter agreed and put nature on hold during Persephone’s underworld visits; this becoming winter. When Persephone returned, nature was allowed to move forward again as Earth experienced spring.