MEMPHIS, Tenn. — April was the biggest month of the year when it came to viewing the night sky here in Memphis and the Mid-South. We started off with the Total Solar Eclipse which gave us a tremendous view along with the great viewing conditions in the path of totality nearby in Arkansas. That starts us off with some of the viewer photos that we got of the eclipse from the area during the big day. After the eclipse, we also received some Moon photos from different points in the month from a few of our viewers including an image of the Full Moon from last month.
Moving on to what we can expect in the month of May, There will be 4 very good passes of the International Space Station. One of the better passes will be taking place on May 9th at 9:58 PM. If you are interested in seeing some of the other passes, make sure to keep posted to social media for all the opportunities.
This time of the year starts the period of the year when we get to see a very exciting sight in our southern sky. While most of what we talk about is visible from your backyard, this will require at least some travel outside of the Memphis metro. May begins what can be called the "Milky Way Season". During the stretch of May through September, our view of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, called the Galactic Core. It appears as a milky, or hazy appearance to the sky. It is very dim though, which means that you must leave the washed-out city skies.
The interference of city lights with our night sky is called light pollution. We can map this out and show where the best views of not only the night sky but also the Milky Way. Looking at this map, outside of the Memphis metro provides much darker skies, with the Delta region, along with Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri being the best places to get away from the lights.
The Full Moon will be taking place on May 23rd. The Moon for this month is known as the "Flower Moon", named for the abundance of Spring flowers in the month of May.
As always, the weather always plays an important role in what you can see during the night. We are getting to the time of the year when our conditions will be very dependent on thunderstorms that we see form in our evenings. With that being said, after cloud weather on Thursday and Friday, we look okay as long as isolated storms do not get in the way.
