Every year in mid May amateur astronomers around the world celebrate Astronomy Day. On this day across the country and the world you'll see people everywhere with their scopes out during the daytime to encourage kids and adults to be interested in the skies. Likewise you'll see many events throughout for evening skies too. This year Astronomy Day falls on 5/10 and for our club, it will be this weekend on 5/17. Each year we hold Astronomy Day events at the A-Z Science Store on King Street in Northampton. The event starts at 10AM and goes on throughout the day. If the weather is nice we'll have a few scopes set up viewing the sun and the surrounding area. If you've never looked through a scope this is a great opportunity to do so. Especially if you've never seen the sun filtered through a telescope. The same evening if the weather continues to cooperate we'll be at the Amherst College Observatory training our scopes on the night sky. Again if you've never looked through a telescope and thought about coming to the observatory program, this would be a great chance for you and your family to come. Or if you have a dusty pair of binoculars or an old scope sitting in the closet drag it out and bring that along with you. We'll have a bright moon in the skies to look at along with many other bright and easy objects to view. And if you're an old pro at this we hope to see you too. - Sean

Looks like the weather is finally taking a turn for the better. The next two nights should give us some decent observing weather here in Western Massachusetts. Although the moon is waxing gibbous right now doesn't mean we can't observe some really cool objects in the night sky. Right now we have Mercury in the west about a half hour after sunset. This is a great chance to see the little rascal with your naked eye, a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. Right overhead about an hour after sunset we have Saturn and it's marvelous ring system. Almost any scope or pair of binoculars capable of giving over 15x magnification will show the rings. Rising in the east we have the mighty Arcturus. Google Bootes for a couple neat deep sky and double star objects even a 3-4" scope will show good detail with. We're still working on this site and once we can embed pictures and videos we'll get some up for you to look at. Also viewable the next few days are the open clusters M35, M36, M37, M38, and M44. Globular clusters M3, M13, and M92. And many galaxies in Virgo, Ursa Major and Leo. -Sean

The rain never stops. At least that's what it feels like. For the astronomer (amateur or professional) you need clear skies. More than that you need clear, dark, and steady skies. Here in New England we don't get that often, and it seems that when we do it's a full moon or there is nothing interesting in the skies. Of course right now there is something interesting in the skies. We have Mercury rising in the west and Saturn overhead. But we can't see them. At least not today. Tomorrow is looking promising, but Clear Sky Clock is telling us it will be a rain out. Time will tell. Let's hope for the best.

Hello and welcome to the 5A Astronomy Blog. Here you'll find information on the 5A astronomy club including happenings, public programs, past events and other information. I will also be posting astronomy news and sky events as well as other stuff. This is a family friendly area. We just recently got the blog up and running and it is still a work in progress. We're working diligently on adding pictures and comments. Hopefully we'll also add RSS feed information to help you stay up to date. So check back frequently and often for the latest astronomy related news. April was a busy month for the 5As. We opened the 18" Clark refractor for the first time this year at our weekly Saturday night observatory program. Unfortunately winter was not too kind and the drive mechanism suffered some damage that is in progress of being repaired. Hopefully we'll have some good news to report soon which you could read about here. We also participated in the annual Astronomy Association dinner at The Hold Redeemer Church in Hadley. There was a good turn out for this event from all of the AA's clubs. The club also had a couple successful Public Solar Observing sessions on the Amherst Commons as well as the before mentioned Saturday Evening Public Observatory sessions. As always these are free to everyone. Check the main page for times and locations. In the night sky this week we have a couple naked eye events that anyone can look at. Naked eye is a term used for viewing the sky without optical aid. Today on 5/6 we have a very young moon that is visible shortly after sunset. It is a tough one to see but with some luck you should be able to see a slim 1 day old moon about a full hands length above the horizon about 45 minutes after sunset. Over the next few days you'll see the moon move higher and more southernly as it moves around it's orbit. This week also marks the return of Mercury to the evening sky. This week and next will be best times all year to see the elusive inner planet. Since we can't post images yet, and hence star charts, head over to Astronomy.com or SkyandTelescope.com for star charts. The next couple nights you'll also see Mars making a line with Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Now that Earth is pulling away from Mars, the planet is much dimmer than it was a few months ago during opposition (the point in orbit when it is closes to the Earth and opposite the sun in the sky). Back in December Mars was about 50 millions miles away. Now it's about 150 million miles away and hence much dimmer. Sean If you have comments please mail them to me at: smarien@amastro.org

On Monday, May 5 New Moon (exact at 8:18 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time). Just after sunset today, clear sky permitting, a record-breaking thin crescent Moon may be detectable from North America. Writes Robert C. Victor: "About 25 minutes after sunset, try for a hairline-thin Moon very low in the west-northwest, about 13° lower right of Mercury. Its age is a near-record 12 hours or so when seen from the East Coast (extremely difficult), 15 or 16 hours from the West Coast, 17 hours from Hawaii." Bring binoculars for sure. More details, and young crescent Moon predictions for the whole year, are in your February Sky & Telescope, page 72. -Kevin