Observing With Webb - April Episode

Welcome to Observing With Webb, where the armchair astronomer figures out what they’re looking at, why it’s so cool, and what they should check out next.  Don’t forget to check out my Podbean page, YouTube Channel, and Twitter feed. All five naked eye planets are visible at some point in April, temperatures get warmer, and the Lyrid Meteor Shower might put on a display, April 22. Mercury – If you’re out for the first week of April around sunset, you can catch Mercury’s best apparition of the year. Look West and find the bright point less than 15˚ above the horizon.  Each day it gets lower, is not visible for the next two weeks, and then reappears very low in the sunrise sky before 6:05am if you’re good. Jupiter – Great month for it, as it reaches opposition on the 7th, where you can see it from sunset to sunrise.  If you’re looking for Jupiter before going to bed, it rises in the East 45 minutes after sunset (7:30pm) at the beginning of the month and is already 30˚ up in the SE at sunset by the end of the month.  Just look for the very bright object in the SE after sunset.  If you’re staying up late, Jupiter will be in the South at midnight, and in the WSW around sunrise, always hanging out around Spica, the brightest star in Virgo.  Saturn – Rises around 1am in the SE.  Look S in the mornings before sunrise.  It will only be about 25˚ above the horizon, much brighter than anything else around it, above Sagittarius. Enter the code for this week into this site: https://cosmoquest.org/achievements/code for a chance to win. This week's code is HkdJvo Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations. Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/ Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site: https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!