You may have heard of the current “Parade of Planets:” You can see the planets with the unaided eye from an open area.  It doesn’t need to be particularly dark since several of the planets are fairly bright.

If you can find a location with a wide view of the sky and a good view of the western horizon, maybe a parking lot or open field, you should be able to see Jupiter, Mars, and Venus.  If your horizon is low enough, you might see Mercury, but it will challenging.  Mercury will only be about 8 degrees above the horizon at 6:30 PM in the evening.  Saturn will be too low to be easily seen at all.

That really bright star in the South is Sirius. To its right, more to the West, you’ll see the three belt stars of Orion. From there, you should be able to find the Hyades‘ “V” shape to the upper right of Orion.

Here is a list of things you should be able to see in Spring with just ordinary binoculars (7 x 35).

• Castor/Pollux – Stars low in the West
•  M44 Cluster- The Beehive (left of Castor/Pollux)
•  M3 Cluster (Above Arcturus)
•  Corona Borealis (Left of Arcturus)
•  Delta Bootes – Double star (Above Corona Borealis)
•  Spring Triangle – Arcturus, Spica, Regulus
•  Spring Arch – Procyon, Castor, Pollux, Capella

You can use this diagram as a guide. It can be downloaded at skymaps.com. The orientation for the map is set for South, with the middle of the circle representing straight overhead. Turn the map upside down when looking North.

The larger the blob on the map, the brighter the object will appear in the sky–note the magnitude legend at the bottom right of the map. Contrary to intuition, the higher the magnitude number, the dimmer the object appears.

ISS (International Space Station passes)

Will the ISS make a pass over Chapel Hill tonight?