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Open Daily: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Closed: New Year's Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day
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(509) 427-8211
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Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center Museum
990 SW Rock Creek Drive
P.O. Box 396
Stevenson, WA 98648
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Gorge Skies 5-5-10
This is the time of the year that teases you into thinking that you can make plans and the weather will cooperate.
I spent many a season as a high school tennis coach, and many a days watching well-intentioned scheduled matches be washed out by rain squalls that come at the last minute, usually after your team or the visiting team just left from their respective schools.
What I am trying to say is that this time of the year when the weather gets mild enough where you can leave the house bare headed and jacketless, anticipating a warm day, only to find that the sky that was blue a moment ago, is now clouded over, and a cool wind has come up that sends you back in the house to put on something warmer.
The same thing happens when you are anticipating watching the night skies for Jupiter or Mars or whatever.
For example, a famous comet called Halley’s has been periodically passing through the orbit of the Earth on its way to circling the Sun before returning to deep space. Each time it leaves debris behind as it passes through. Now this has been going on for ages, long before Sir Edmund Halley lent his name to this famous comet.
So you would think that if this debris has been laid down so diligently through the ages, and it was put there so that it would produce meteors or shooting stars that dazzle our sense of sight as they streak through our sky, then you would think we should be able to see them. No, you can anticipate that clouds will get in the way and spoil all the fun.
So, I am going to tell you that tonight the Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks. This is the very same one that was produced by Halley’s comet that I mentioned earlier. But fat chance you will be able to see it, for I am fairly certain, clouds will get in the way.
However, if you do want to give it a try, Aquarius, which is the constellation from which the meteors radiate, doesn’t rise until after three in the morning. So if you do venture out, and you do happen to have clear skies you will see Aquarius between brilliant Jupiter and a third quarter moon.
Now the moon being fairly bright will cut down the opportunity to see the fainter meteors, but I am sure the brighter ones will still be observable.
The Eta Aquarid’s meteors are not as numerous as the ones from the Perseid meteor shower of August. The meteors from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower streak at the rate of about one per three minutes, whereas the Perseids are more like one per minute.
Changing the subject slightly, if one was to follow the Moon for the next few days, you could use it to identify some other astronomical objects. For example on May 7, the moon will be just above Neptune.
On May 9 the moon will be just above Jupiter and Uranus. On May 12 it will be just above Mercury, and on May 13 it becomes a New Moon.
Extending it out even a little further, on May 16 the Moon is back in our evening sky and will be found in the company of Venus as a three-day old waxing crescent moon.
So if you are optimistic, like I am, May will be a good month for you, that is, if it doesn’t convert you into a pessimist. Happy viewing!
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Posted on Thursday, May 06, 2010
