After nightfall, our winter constellations can be spotted in the southwestern sky as they make their seasonal plunge toward the horizon. Leo the Lion can be seen high in the south with its “backwards question mark” asterism, making it easily recognizable. Found ahead of the lion lurks Cancer the crab. Within Cancer and visible with the unaided eye is the Beehive Cluster, designated Messier 44. Consisting of about 1,000 stars gravitationally bound together, it lies 610 light years away, making it one of the closest clusters to Earth.

Throughout the entire month, our “Evening Star” and “Sister Planet” Venus is the brightest starlike object in the western sky. By month’s end, it lies about 30 degrees above the horizon at dusk, shining at -4.1 magnitude. Higher in the sky is brilliant Mars. This planet is an excellent unaided-eye target as its red-orange color is fun to compare with the nearby white-blue stars. Due to its orbital location and small apparent size, resolving its features with a telescope is a challenge.

The Lyrid meteor shower runs annually from April 16th to the 25th and peaks this month on the evening of the 22nd into the following morning. This shower produces about 20 meteors per hour and with the crescent moon setting early in the evening, even the fainter meteors will be visible. The meteors radiate from the constellation Lyra but can be seen anywhere in the sky. For best viewing, find yourself a dark location away from light pollution after midnight.

On April 7th, 40 years ago, Donald Peterson and F. Story Musgrave completed the first spacewalk of the Shuttle program. The goal of this spacewalk was to test new spacesuits called Extravehicular Mobility Units, the airlock of the Space Shuttle, and find new ways to repair the outside of the Shuttle. As they were orbiting the earth at 17,500 miles an hour, Peterson’s waist ring on his suit rotated out of place, causing a leak. Peterson and Musgrave both worked fast and were able to move the seal back into place. When they completed the spacewalk, the two astronauts had logged just over four hours.

I recently had the opportunity to stargaze with members of the Westfield Intermediate School Space and Astronomy Club using their school’s library telescope. The first target of the night was the planet Venus, blazing just over the trees in the western sky. The two sixth graders practiced using the red-dot finder scope and focusing the eyepiece to get a sharp image. Afterwards, we shifted our gaze to Mars. This planet shone with a red-orange hue and was fun to compare to nearby stars. Sadly, clouds began spotting the skies and we had to cut the night short. The sixth graders went home proud and excited about teaching other students how to use their library telescope.

My good friend Lani Ching has been stargazing every clear night with her new 8-inch Apertura Dobsonian telescope. Using her 2-inch, 30mm widefield eyepiece, she enjoys scouring the skies from one target to the next. Lani’s favorite target to observe is the moon. She loves examining the craters positioned along the terminator and captures these views by holding her iPhone against the eyepiece. Along with the moon, she enjoys viewing Jupiter and Mars, which she also photographs with her iPhone. In the future, Lani plans to bring her telescope to dark sky sites and observe faint galaxies and other deep sky treasures.