May 5th – Full Moon and a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse – but the Penumbra is just the outer part of Earth’s Shadow. For visual observers we might detect a mild dimming of the Moon .. but it’s not going through the Umbra so it won’t get dark or turn red and, having tried to see a Penumbral Eclipse I would say that most people would not notice this.
May 12th – Last Quarter Moon
May 13th – Saturn is ~3-degrees above the Moon in the Morning sky
May 17th – Jupiter is >1-degree west of the Moon in the Morning Sky and if you are west of us you’ll get an occultation of Jupiter by the Moon.
What is an Occultation? Like the One we had of the Moon and Mars back in December.
There are also double shadow transits apparently visible on the 17th but Jupiter is too low IMO.
May 19th – New Moon
Evenings of May 19th & 20th – Grasslands National Park Beyond the Big Dipper Star Party
May 22 & 23rd – Evening Sky Venus is paired with the Moon
May 24th – Evening Sky – Moon and Mars Pair up
May 26th – Lunar X visible from Western North America in the early morning sky.
May 27th – First quarter Moon in late afternoon & evening sky
May 28th – Lunar Straight Wall Visible. We had a couple images from Jim:
The Straight Wall…is an escarpment otherwise known as Rupes Recta (Latin name for a straight cliff) is a linear fault on the Moon and located in southeastern Mare Nubium at 22.1°S 7.8°W.
May 29th – Mercury at Greatest Elongation, 25-degrees However, it’s too low / close to the sun.
May 31st – Mars enters the Beehive and will be neat to watch with binoculars for he next week as it makes it’s way across the cluster.
Comets – None brighter than Magnitude 10.5 visible from Northern Hemisphere
Any Double Stars this month Shane?
STF1659 in Corvus
The Actual Astronomy Podcast 