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What's in the sky tonight?
May 3, 2012

-Saturn and Spica are left or lower left of the waxing gibbous Moon, as shown here. Look lower right of the Moon for the four-star pattern of Corvus, the Crow.

-The next 35 or so days will bring great drama to how we view the planet Venus, beginning as a "half-Venus" sunlit phase, Venus will sink quickly into the horizon, but not before it becomes a thinner, yet LARGER crescent. All this just before it's June 5th-6th transit of the sun. Read here for more details http://www.skyandtelescope.com/obser...149763175.html

Astro Picture of the Day:
May 3, 2012

Source:
Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe: a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Along with prominent dust lanes and a bright central core, this colorful composite image highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries that trace the galaxy's spiral arms. The high resolution galaxy portrait is a mosaic of data from Hubble's sharp ACS camera combined with groundbased color image data. M106 (aka NGC 4258) is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Energetic active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole.