Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday May 12th through Sunday May 18th.
The full moon for the month of May is on Monday the 12th and then we’ll have a waning gibbous moon for the remainder of the week. This full moon is known as the Milk Moon, the Flower Moon, and the Corn Moon.
Jupiter is in the west-northwest as the sky darkens after sunset and is setting at 10:30 p.m.
Mars is high in the southwest at nightfall and is setting at 1:45 a.m.
Uranus is in conjunction with the sun on Saturday the 17th and will then reemerge into our morning skies, leaving Jupiter and Mars as the only planets up in the evening.
In the morning skies, Saturn is rising at 4:00 a.m. and Neptune is just a few degrees away, but you’ll need a telescope to see the 8th planet.
Venus is rising at 4:25 a.m. and Mercury is rising at 5:50 a.m., about 40 minutes before sunrise.
In space anniversaries this week, Thursday May 15th marks 65 years since the launch of the Sputnik 4 mission, which included the first flight of a Vostok spacecraft in preparation for the first human spaceflight on Vostok 1 the following year. After four days in orbit, controllers fired the retro rockets for the descent module, but it did not reenter the atmosphere as expected due to an error, instead coming back to Earth two years later. The equipment module of the spacecraft reentered the Earth’s atmosphere in 1965 and hit the ground in Manitowoc, Wisconsin where there is a marker of the point of impact and an annual Sputnikfest is held on the anniversary.
There will be no summer public viewing on the UT campus telescopes so we can do maintenance and repairs. We expect to resume the regular viewing schedule in the Fall 2025 semester.
While you’re waiting for Austin-area telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on social media and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
