Merkur, who had reached his greatest eastern elongation on April 29, can still be seen in the evening sky until the beginning of the second week of May. On May 1st you will find it at 9:15 p.m. CEST, when the sun has dropped six degrees below the horizon and bourgeois twilight ends, almost 12 degrees high in the northwest. That evening he stands in the golden gate of the ecliptic, i.e. between the open stars of hyadlands and pleiaades. It is about a degree southeast of the Pleiades. With 0.6 Mag apparent brightness, it is brighter than the brightest stars of the star heap, which is why you have to wait until around 10:00 p.m. to see Planet and Plejaden well, which are then only five degrees above the horizon. On May 2, the 1.8 day old Moon -Sichel joins: it is another 2.5 degrees southeast of Merkur (see "Moon and Mercury in the Golden Gate"). If you take the quick movement Mercury in the sky, such close encounters with the moon are rare. On the second of the month of Plejaden, Mercury, Moon and the Star Aldebaran, which is further positioned southeast, an interesting chain from highly different sky objects, which continues to the horizon. Mercury is becoming increasingly difficult to see in the following evenings, especially since bright objects are missing nearby. Its angle distance from the sun shrinks, at the same time its brightness drops rapidly due to the ever smaller lighting phase to only 2.1 on May 9, the end of its visibility. Mercury remains invisible for the rest of the month, a narrow morning visibility does not result in again at the end of June. On May 21, he takes the lower conjunctional position.
Venus is the morning star. On 1 May, at the onset of dusk at around 05:20 CEST, we find them there five degrees above the eastern horizon – and 20 arc minutes southeast of Jupiter (see »Aphrodite cuddles with gas giants«). Venus is −4.1 mag, Jupiter −2.1 mag bright. Venus' horizon height at the beginning of dusk hardly changes in the course of the month due to the flat ecliptic, so this morning visibility is correspondingly unnoticeable. As it moves away from Earth, the Venus disk shrinks and becomes rounder at the same time: at the end of May, it measures just under 14 arc seconds and is 78 percent illuminated. A close encounter with the waning moon (distance about 50 arc minutes) occurs on the morning of 27 May.
Mars is in the morning sky. It opens on May 1st at 04:25 a.m. CEST and is 8.5 degrees above the East South Dost horizon at the dawn. He will be released on May 31 at 3:10 a.m. and reached a 14 degree Horizont height in the morning. However, there shouldn't be much on the approximately six arc second in Mars disc in such adverse circumstances. The encounters of our red neighbor with two gas giants in the earthly sky are more interesting. On the morning of May 18, Mars passed Neptune at a distance of about 32 arch minutes, on the 29th Jupiter distance in 35 arch minutes. The approximately 0.7 Mag Hellen Mars can be found south of the two planets; The angle distance corresponds to a full moon diameter. On May 25, the waning moon is about four degrees southeast of Mars.
Jupiter rises in front of the sun and stands in the morning sky. Its apparent magnitude is −2.1 mag. On May 31, we find the giant planet at nightfall at 04:34 CEST 15 degrees above the east-southeast horizon. Four months before Jupiter's opposition, its disk measures 37 arc seconds at the equator. Over the course of the month, Jupiter will make virtual visits to both of Earth's neighboring planets: Venus on May 1 and Mars on May 29. The waning moon is 3.5 degrees southeast of the planet on the 25th of the month.
Saturn stands, 0.7 also likes Hell in the morning sky. He is the westernmost of the planets there and is the most monthly at 3:46 a.m. CEST, on May 31 at 01:51 a.m. Like all morning sky planets in May, Saturn is also handicapped by the flat -standing ecliptic - albeit of all the least: at the end of May, at least at the end of the dawn, he climbs up to 20 degrees - early risers can again take a telescopic look at the planet, whose angle diameter 17, with rings 40 sheet second reached. The moon passes Saturn on May 22nd south.
Uranus is in conjunction on May 5. He is invisible throughout the month. Although it will again reach angular distances of 23 degrees and more west of the Sun on May 31, the 5.9 mag bright planet drowns at dawn due to an awkward ecliptic.
Neptune stands - surprise! - in the morning sky and quickly disappears at dusk. With its apparent brightness of 7.8 MAG, the planet can hardly be observed. On the morning of May 18, Mars helps to go. If you are targeting the distant planet, you should take your time until the end of the month. On the 31st, Neptune will be ten degrees above the east south horizon at the beginning of the nautical dusk (sun level 11 degrees below the horizon) - after all!
