Early morning risers are in for a treat between now and the end of May 2011 as the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter engage in a slow ‘dance’ above the Eastern horizon. In ancient days, we probably would have all run around like ‘headless chooks’ because we would have believed that these wandering stars were our Gods, and the fact that they were moving past each other meant bad things were going to happen. Today we know enough about ‘up there’ to understand that the moving stars aren’t Gods but instead are planets moving around the Sun in their own orbits. We also know today that the planets only appear to be near each other and in fact are separated from each other by tens or thousands of millions of kilometers. That said, it will still be a pretty show.
The below charts produced using the free Stellarium astronomy computer program (www.stellarium.org) for an observer based in South East Queensland but will also be useful if you live anywhere in Eastern Australia. Suggested viewing times are stated below each chart.
On the morning of Wednesday 20 April 2011, Mars and Mercury will be only separated by 0.6 degrees (or just over a Moon width).
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At the start of May 2011, Jupiter and Mars will only be 0.5 degrees apart.
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On Sunday 8 May 2011, Venus and Mercury will only be separated by 1.5 degrees (three Moon widths).
On 12 May 2011, Venus and Jupiter will only be 0.6 degrees apart (just over one Moon width).
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Venus and Mars will be 1.1 degrees apart on 23 and 24 May 2011 (Just over two Moon widths).
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I live in hervey bay, QLD. While looking at the international space station, I noticed around 10:00 that there was a bright cluster of lights in the sky to the west of my house. It wasn’t a plane, it wasn’t the space station, but it was moving and flashing (green, red, blue, yellow, white). I have looked a meteors, comets, planets Etc, but can’t work out what it could be. Can you help?