April 2019: 3 things stargazers should look for in the night sky

By Brian Lada, AccuWeather meteorologist and staff writer

The first major meteor shower since January is set to peak in April, headlining this month’s list of top astronomy events to mark on your calendar.

Three planets will gather in the early morning sky during mid-April, one of which is a good target for those with a telescope.

Here are three astronomy events to mark on your calendar throughout April:

1. International Dark Sky Week
When: March 31 - April 6

The first week of April will be celebrated around the globe as International Dark Sky Week.

“Created in 2003 by high-school student Jennifer Barlow, International Dark Sky Week (IDSW) has grown to become a worldwide event and a key component of Global Astronomy Month,” Astronomers Without Borders explained on their website.

“The goals of IDSW are to appreciate the beauty of the night sky and to raise awareness of how poor-quality lighting creates light pollution,” Astronomers Without Borders said.

This will be a great week for people of all ages to head to a dark area where there is less light pollution, such as a local park, to gaze upon the night sky. 

The Milky Way in the light pollution-free sky over central Nevada. (AccuWeather Photo/Brian Lada)

Light pollution has become a growing issue in recent decades, making it difficult for millions of people to see celestial objects such as dim stars or the Milky Way from their neighborhood.

According to the International Dark Sky Association, 99 percent of the population in the United States and Europe live under light-polluted skies.

2. Venus, Mercury meet up in morning sky
When: April 15

Early risers in mid-April will be treated to a planetary trio in the eastern sky.

Shortly before sunrise, onlookers will be able to see Venus and Mercury just above the horizon. Venus will be the brighter of the two planets and will appear slightly above and to the right of Mercury.

This is one of the few opportunities to see Mercury as it is often too close to the sun to spot. 

Neptune will also be sitting in the eastern sky near Venus and Mercury; however, a telescope is required to see this planet as it is too dim to see with the unaided eye.

Although April 15 will be one of the best mornings to see the planets, they will be visible above the eastern horizon on the days leading up to and immediately following this date, weather permitting.

3. Lyrid Meteor Shower
When: April 22-23

April 22 is widely known as Earth Day, but many stargazers should also mark the Lyrid meteor shower on their calendars as it is the first major meteor shower since January.

“The Lyrids will be the strongest shower since the Quadrantids of early January [and] puts on a show for about three nights surrounding the peak night,” AccuWeather Astronomy Blogger Dave Samuhel said.

The radiant point of this meteor shower is located near Lyra, the constellation for which they are named, but meteors will be visible in all parts of the sky. 

This year, the peak night is expected to be Monday, April 22, into the early morning of Tuesday, April 23.

Typically, onlookers observe around 20 meteors per hour; however, this year it may be slightly lower due to light from the nearly full moon. This natural source of light pollution will make it more difficult to see the dimmer meteors.

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Folks that miss the Lyrids will not have to wait long for another opportunity to catch some shooting stars as the Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower will peak two weeks later in early May.

Looking back at March

March featured the third and final supermoon of 2019, shining bright on the first night of spring. The full moon occurred less than 4 hours after the vernal equinox, the closest that the two events occurred since 2000. A few nights later, a solar flare on the sun caused the northern lights to glow over parts of Canada, Norway and Finland. 

This geostationary operational environmental satellite image (GOES) East image was captured on March 20, 2019, at 8 a.m. ET prior to the equinox. (Photo courtesy NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS))

March's Full Worm Moon rising over New York City. (Photo/Frank Little)

The first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket landing after sending the Crew Dragon demo mission to the International Space Station. (Photo/SpaceX)

NASA's MODIS instrument, aboard the Terra satellite, captured this image showing the remnants of a meteor's passage, seen as a dark shadow cast on thick, white clouds on Dec. 18, 2018. Credit: NASA GSFC

An image of the sun during a C-class solar flare on March 20. (Image/Solar Dynamic Observatory)

A section of the last panorama image taken by the Mars Opportunity Rover. (Image/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU)

The supermoon rising on the night of March 20. (Photo/Jennifer Rose Lane)

The waning crescent moon over Dublin, Ireland, on March 1, 2019.

On Tuesday, March 26, 2019, NASA announced that they plan to return humans to the surface of the Moon as early as 2024. (Photo/NASA)

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SpaceX took a giant step forward in its goal of launching astronauts to the International Space Station when it performed a demo flight of its crewed dragon space capsule. The company plans to launch astronauts later this year.

NASA announced that it detected a massive meteor explosion over the Bering Sea, which took place on Dec. 18, 2018. This was the most intense meteor observed since 2013 and released more than 10 times the energy than the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima during World War II.

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