May Stargazing

Spring, the season of renewal and  rebirth, brings a renewed energy to  evening skywatching as well. Leo  and Virgo, with their brightest stars  Regulus and Spica, climb high overhead.  Hercules lumbers into the northeast,  while the Summer Triangle peeks into view in  late evening, heralding the approach of the  short nights of summer. Venus climbs into better  view in the early evening, while Mars remains  in good view and Jupiter climbs skyward in the  east at dawn. More stargazing information:   http://stardate.org/nightsky/weekly.php   Hear StarDate every day on more than 360   radio stations nationwide. Or subscribe to our  podcast and RSS feed.    http://stardate.org/feeds/rss.xml May 3-9: The strongman. Mighty Hercules  clambers across the sky on spring nights. Turns  out, though, that he's mightier in mythology  and movies than in the sky. Join us for details  about Hercules, plus much more. May 10-16: Scary visitor. Halley's Comet scares  a lot of people every time it appears in the night  sky. A hundred years ago, it had people buying  "comet pills" to ward off its feared effects. Join  us for more on this famous visitor. May 17-23: Astronomical lightshow. The laser  turns 50 this month. It's an important part of  everyday life -- and of astronomy. It helps clear  up the view of the stars, looks for alien  civilizations, and much more. Join us for details. May 24-30: The herdsman. The constellation  Boötes, the herdsman, trudges high overhead  this week. We'll talk about it, and about its  "most beautiful" star. Join us for this, plus a  search for a giant space rock. May 31-June 6: Planetary giants. The biggest  planet in the solar system has a big but  hard-to-see companion right now. We'll tell  you how to find them, and talk about how  the two worlds are alike, and how they're  different. Join us for giant planets. May Program Schedule:   http://stardate.org/radio/calendars     You'll find great book  recommendations in the May/June  issue of StarDate magazine,  our special Summer Reading  issue. It includes feature-length  excerpts from three new popular  books in astronomy and physics, as well as  shorter excerpts from many more. And as always,  two months worth of skywatching tips and sky  charts, and the latest astronomy news. Subscribe online: http://stardate.org/magazine   Recent Texas PhD Receives Award for  Studies of Exploding Stars The Astronomical Society of the Pacific presented  the 2010 Robert J. Trumpler Award to Robert  Quimby in April. The Society presents this award  each year to a recent PhD in North America  whose research is considered unusually important  to astronomy. Quimby completed his PhD in  astronomy at The University of Texas at  Austin in December 2006. His "Texas  Supernova Search," carried out at McDonald  Observatory, made headlines in The New York  Times and Time magazine in 2007. Find out more:   http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/releases/2010/0402.html