Skywatch: See comet mid-month — if it holds its brightness

Kaiwikuamo‘o (the Backbone) is the featured evening star family for the months of April, May and June. The Backbone runs from Hokupa‘a (Polaris) in the north to Hanaiakamalama (Southern Cross), the meridian pointer for the south celestial pole.

The Backbone is one of four star families that are modern heuristic devices for visually organizing the night sky around prominent stars and constellations. Developed in Hawaii around 1992, the four star families are used as a tool for oceanic voyagers to read the night sky in order to navigate.

Chad Kalepa Baybayan’s early encounters with the night sky were guided by a beloved astronomer and educator (read his full account online at staradvertiser.com):

“My first experience learning about the night sky came 42 years ago in the Bishop Museum Planetarium under the tutelage of lecturer-astronomer Will Kyselka. A kind and profound educator, Kyselka had a keen passion for inspiring learning through exploration.

“In 1980, Kyselka and his wife, Lee, were crew members on board Captain Alex Jakubenko’s Ishka, a 48-foot steel monohull and escort vessel for the Hokule‘a. A steel-hulled boat builder, Jakubenko and his wife, Elsa, would sail to Tahiti annually to visit their daughter and grandchildren on Moorea.

“From 1980 to 1992, during my voyages on board the Hokule‘a, I relied on Kyselka’s book, ‘North Star to Southern Cross,’ and its month-by-month pictures of the night sky to learn all about the constellations and stars.

“In 1978, Kaiwikuamo‘o was taught to me as the starline ‘North Star to Southern Cross.’ Kyselka would always begin by identifying the obvious big-picture object in the starline, the Big Dipper. The two stars in the scoop of the Big Dipper point toward Polaris, the North Star. Polaris forms the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. The Big Dipper is positioned above the Little Dipper when it is rising in the east, with each of the scoops facing and pouring their contents into each other.

“The handle of the Big Dipper points toward Arcturus, the red giant Hokule‘a, the zenith star for Hawaii and brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere. Following the North Star to Southern Cross flow, we cross the celestial equator and come to the binary star Spica in the constellation Virgo. Even with the use of a telescope, you cannot distinguish the binary, two-star nature of Spica. The next constellation is the trapezoidal shaped Corvus, the Crow. An imaginary line drawn through the center of Corvus points toward the top of the Southern Cross.”

“The Southern Cross is a unique asterism; when upright it points toward the south celestial pole. Unlike the north celestial pole, which has a star, Polaris, marking a point fairly close to its northern location, the south celestial pole does not have a star to help identify its location. In the visible night sky, you can find the south celestial pole by identifying the empty spot the southern stars orbit around; however, this only works if you are south of the equator and able to see the southern horizon.

“At the equator, A-Crux, the bottom star in the Southern Cross, is approximately 27 degrees above the south celestial pole when it is in meridian. The last two stars in the ‘North Star to Southern Cross’ starline are Alpha and Beta Centauri, the pointer stars to the Southern Cross. From the eastern horizon, Alpha and Beta Centauri follow the Southern Cross and point toward the top of the cross. At 4.37 light-years, Alpha Centauri is the closest star and planetary system to Earth’s solar system.

“‘An Ocean in Mind,’ another book written by Kyselka, recounts the story of how 14 crew members of the Hokule‘a followed the path from North Star to Southern Cross to find Tahiti during their 1980 voyage.”

Special events

A comet discovered in Hawaii has been decorating our night sky for a while and may be bright enough to be visible to the naked eye in mid-May — if it doesn’t disintegrate first.

In late December 2019, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System on Halea­kala and Maunaloa discovered a new comet which is now named C/2019 ATLAS; this comet was quickly declared the brightest comet of 2019. In the first quarter of 2020, the comet was getting brighter as it approached the sun and it was originally expected to be the brightest comet of 2020, becoming visible in mid-May.

Unfortunately, starting in mid-April the nucleus of the comet began disintegrating. If the comet continues to disintegrate, its brightness will be difficult to determine. However, the best time to view this comet will likely be around May 15 by looking toward the northwest direction of the star Hokulei (Capella) from sunset until just after 8 p.m.

Evening observing

Venus continues to stand out in the northwestern sky just after sunset; however, by the end of May, this beautiful bright planet will be setting along with the sun. By mid-June, you will start to see Venus only in the early morning sky.

The distinctive shape of Heiheionakeiki (Orion) has been clearly visible in the sky over the past few months. As spring comes to an end and summer follows, Orion’s shape will be setting in our early evening sky. As this happens, keep an eye on the westernmost star in the belt of Orion, Mintaka. Sitting almost exactly on the celestial equator, Mintaka will rise exactly in the east and set exactly in the west.

Morning observing

Early-bird stargazers will enjoy a very different perspective of the night sky. As summer approaches, the sun will be rising earlier and the nights will be getting shorter. Throughout May, the sun will rise just before 6 a.m and the light of dawn will start to color our sky around 5:30 a.m. In the early morning hours, the bright planet, Jupiter, and the fainter planet, Saturn, will be high in the southeastern sky.

These two gas giants will accompany each other through the sky less than 10 degrees apart, continuing to get closer to each other until they reach a conjunction in December. A conjunction occurs when two planets appear to be less than 1 degree apart from each other. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is quite rare, occurring only once every 20 years or so.

The distinctive red planet, Mars, will also be rising high up in the southeastern sky. The recognizable reddish color of Mars comes from its oxidized or “rusted” soil. The basalt on Mars is quite similar to the basalt found on Maunaloa and Maunakea, making those locations here wonderful analog sites to train for potential missions to the rusty red planet.

MEI (MAY ) SKIES AT 8 P.M. by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd

Chad Kalepa Baybayan (Kalepa.Baybayan@hawaii.edu) serves as navigator-­in-residence and Emily Peavy (Emily.Peavy@hawaii.edu) as planetarium technician support facilitator at the ‘ Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii, a center for informal science education at the University of Hawaii at Hilo showcasing astronomy and Hawaiian culture as parallel journeys of human exploration.