April 2020: Planets Aplenty

By: J. Kelly Beatty March 31, 2020 0

This month’s Sky Tour astronomy podcast highlights how Venus flirts with the Pleiades star cluster after sunset, then leads you to views of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars together in the predawn sky.

This episode is sponsored by Celestron, manufacturer of high-quality telescopes and an industry leader in developing exciting optical products with revolutionary technologies.

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Moon and planets at dawn April 2020 — In mid-April, the waning Moon joins Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the predawn sky.
*Sky & Telescope*

April is one of the better months for stargazing, and our Sky Tour astronomy podcast guides you to some of the month's best celestial highlights. Even with daylight time in effect, evening twilight comes fairly early. You’ll find that the Sun sets between 7:30 and 8 p.m. during most of this month, and by 9 p.m. it’s good and dark.

Venus has been a brilliant beacon in the west after sunset for months now. Make sure you get outside for a look early in the month, especially the nights of April 3rd and 4th, to watch this dazzling planet slip past the Pleiades star cluster. This happens every 8 years, and it’ll look especially awesome through binoculars.

Once it gets a little darker, look to the left of Venus to glimpse what’s left of the brilliant stars of winter, which are sinking lower toward the western horizon with each passing night. Our Sky Tour astronomy podcast guides you to these stars and constellations and gives you confidence to know which ones are which.

For now, Venus is the only bright planet in the evening sky. But it’s a different story in the sky that you’ll see in the morning before dawn. There you’ll find three more planets. Jupiter, the brightest, rises first and is well up in the southeast as twilight begins. To its left are Saturn and Mars, which appear roughly the same brightness.

This month's Sky Tour astronomy podcast offers these tips and many more ways to get a fun and informative guided tour of the nighttime sky! Listen or download it now.