The First Quarter Moon will be on May 19th. Normally Ponca City Astronomy holds a Sidewalk Astronomy event on the weekend prior to the First Quarter Moon but it looks like the weather man is against us and there will be clouds, rain and possible thunderstorms. We will then move our event to the following weekend and hold our event at the Lake Ponca Campground on Saturday May 22 and at the Ponca City RecPlex on Sunday May 23. Both events will start at 6:00 PM and end around 9:00 PM. During this time of the year the Sun sets pretty late but the moon can be seen during the daylight. Though you can see an astounding amount of detail during the daylight through our telescopes, as it gets darker the details of the moon show up much better. The moon will be close and appear much larger than usual.

Also visible will be both Mars and Mercury both will be in the West. Mercury will be at its greatest elongation on May 17 giving us a good chance to spot it in the evening sky. The earth is moving away from Mars and will not be in our sky for about another 18 months. As the Moon moves across our sky it will be close to the bright star Regulus in the constellation Leo on May 19 then a few days later it will be near the star Spica the bright star in the constellation Virgo. Then as in my previous article about the Blood Red Moon in an eclipse of the Full Moon on May 26th the Moon will be near the star Antares in the constellation of Scorpius as the Moon sets in the West .

For a monthly map of the night sky along with information about Celestial Objects, Tips for Observing, an Astronomical Glossary of terms there are also lists of things easily seen with the unaided eye, things easily seen with binoculars and telescopic Objects go to the Website “Skymaps.com” and you can download a PDF of the map for the current month.

To follow events of Ponca City Astronomy find us on Facebook. We hope to see you at one of our events soon.