April continues to give worthwhile observation opportunities with a meteor shower as well as some planets and deep-sky objects, too, like nebulae and star clusters.
Book your visit this April to see your favourite object in space. We offer a guided Observatory tour and night sky observation via traditional and smart telescopes, like Vespera and Stellina. Al Sadeem Astronomy is the only distributor of these smart telescopes here in the Middle East. You can place an order or inquiry here.
Check out the list of night sky companions when you visit the Observatory this month, and some dates worth taking note of to help you plan your stargazing.
Planets
Venus. This planet will remain in the night skies for most of April, giving the best view just after sunset. Its utter brightness can’t be missed, it’s easy to mistake it as an approaching airplane in the sky.
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Mars. The Red Planet will still also be present in the April skies, displaying its reddish tiny glow somewhere in the eastern sky, specifically in constellation Taurus. A conventional telescope can give more details about our neighbor.
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Nebulae
The Orion Nebula (M42) & De Mairan’s Nebula (M43). Both found in the constellation Orion, the Orion Nebula & De Mairans’ Nebula are easy colorful targets to those who would like to come through the deepest corners of our night sky. They’re part of the Orion molecular gas cloud and will appear as fuzzy patches of light, with some of its distinct details showing up. Observe them using a conventional or a smart telescope like Vaonis’ Vespera.
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Rosette Nebula. This blossoming cloud of gas and dust is found near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. It’s also the nursery of the open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50), having been formed from the nebula’s matter. Capture this space flower using a smart telescope like Vaonis’ Vespera.
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Flame Nebula (NGC 2024 and Sh2-277). The Flame Nebula is a bright and colorful emission nebula located in the constellation Orion, east of the famous Orion Nebula (M42). It is illuminated by a bright star called Alnitak, which is part of Orion’s Belt. The nebula appears as a glowing red and orange cloud of gas and dust, and it is a popular target among astrophotographers and amateur astronomers alike.
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Star Clusters
M46 & M47 Star Cluster. It is a cluster of stars located in the constellation Puppis about 5,000 light-years away from our planet. Finding this star cluster using a conventional or a smart telescope will feel like you’ve come across a spill of diamonds.
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M53 Globular Cluster. If you’re looking for a densely-packed cluster of stars, then M53 might be a good object to start observing. It may be one of the most distant stars in our galaxy–about 58,000 light-years from Earth, but M35 contains tens of thousands of stars that are densely packed together in a spherical shape making it a popular target for astrophotographers.
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Messier 3 or M3. This is another globular cluster that’s a favorite among sky observers. Located in the constellation Canes Venatici, it contains hundreds of thousands of stars and is considered to be one of the oldest known globular clusters.
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Sky Events You Wouldn’t Want to Miss this April
Moon – Venus Conjunction – April 23
Couldn’t get enough of the Moon-Venus pairing in the sky? We’ll have this one again in April, with the same right ascension. The Moon passing 1°18′ to the north of Venus. The Moon will be 3 days old.
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Lyrid Meteor Shower – April 23
April showers us with the Lyrids this year, as our planet passes through the debris left behind by the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher. The Lyrid meteor shower is known for producing bright meteors that are visible to the naked eye, with an average rate of around 10-20 meteors per hour. The peak of the shower happens on April 23 up to the early morning hours of April 24th. The best time to observe the shower is after midnight, when the radiant point (the point in the sky from where the meteors appear to originate) is high in the sky.
It’s important to note though that observing meteor showers requires patience, and it will take time to catch a meteor or two.
Lyrids’ radiant as rendered by Stellarium
Moon Phases this Month
Full Moon – April 06, 2023
Last Quarter – April 13, 2023
New Moon – April 20, 2023
First Quarter – April 28, 2023