For May 2026, the Full moon occurs on both May 1 and May 30th; the second full moon of a calendar month is the traditional “blue moon." The New Moon is on May 16. The waxing crescent moon makes a fine pairing with brilliant Venus in the west at dusk on May 18, passing 2 degrees to the upper right of the Earth’s sister world. On May 20, the waxing crescent overtakes the second brightest planet, Jupiter, passing seven degrees to the south of it. Note also the Gemini, Castor, and Pollux, just opposite the Moon. With Jupiter in the middle. This is a nice target for smartphones. The first quarter moon is on May 22. As noted earlier, the blue moon ends the month as full as well.
Among the planets, Mercury is behind the Sun as May starts, but it will join Venus in the evening sky by the month’s end, below it in the dusk. Venus dominates the evening sky, climbing higher away from the Sun each evening, to reach its greatest elongation of 47 degrees east of the Sun in June.
Last month, I hoped that Comet MAPS might survive its close encounter with the Sun to become visible in the western sky; it did not, evaporating completely to dust on April 3. But another new comet brightened our morning skies in late April, to display a long, thin tail. This is Comet PANSTARRS C/2025 R3 in the dawn on April 14th with my See Star S-30 Pro.
It still may be faintly visible in Pegasus in early May, but it will probably become visible with the naked eye only between its closest approach to the Sun on April 19th and its closest approach to the Earth on April 25. Note the bluish gas tail at the top, and the yellow dust tail below in this image as it rounds the Sun and its tails are driven outward by the pressure of the solar wind.
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit skymaps.com.
The winter constellations will soon be swallowed up in the Sun’s glare, but Orion is still visible, with its famed Orion Nebula, M-42, seen below the three stars marking his famed belt. Dominating the southwest is the Dog Star, Sirius, the brightest star of the night sky. When Sirius vanishes into the Sun’s glare in two months, this sets the period as “Dog Days."
The brightest star in the NW is Capella, distinctively yellow in color. It is a giant star, almost exactly the same temperature as our Sun, but about 100X more luminous. Just south of it are the stellar twins, the Gemini, with Castor closer to Capella, and Pollux closer to the Little Dog Star, Procyon. Bright Jupiter sits south of the twins, but gradually moves toward Cancer to the east as the month progresses.
The faintest of the zodiacal constellations, Cancer does not get much attention, but it does house one of the finest open clusters in the sky, M-44, the Beehive Cluster. In this captioned shot with my new See Star S 30 Pro in “Milky Way” mode for wide-angle shots of the constellations and galaxy, I can “mark” the myths, much like the Nocturne app allows you to do with iPhones. To the naked eye on that March evening, the cluster appeared visually as a blur, but any binoculars would reveal its stellar nature, just as the fine optics of the See Star do here.
Overhead, the Big Dipper rides high. Good scouts know to take their leading pointers north to Polaris, the famed Pole Star. For us, it sits 30 degrees (our latitude) high in the north, while the rotating Earth beneath makes all the other celestial bodies orbit it from east to west. If you drop south from the bowl of the Big Dipper, Leo the Lion rides high. Note that the Egyptian Sphinx is based on the shape of this Lion in the sky. The “regal” star Regulus marks the heart of the celestial lion. Taking the arc in the Dipper’s handle, we “arc” SE to bright orange Arcturus, the brightest star of spring. Cooler than our yellow Sun, and much poorer in heavy elements, some believe its strange motion reveals it to be an invading star from another smaller galaxy, now colliding with the Milky Way in Sagittarius in the summer sky. Moving almost perpendicular to the plane of our Milky Way, Arcturus was the first star in the sky where its proper motion across the historic sky was noted by Edmund Halley. Just east of Arcturus is Corona Borealis, the “northern crown”, a shapely Coronet that Miss America would gladly don, and one of the few constellations that looks like its name. We are still awaiting the predicted eruption of its famed “Blaze Star," T Corona Borealis, now two years late from the past behavior. When it does suddenly erupt as a recurrent nova, it should outshine Gemma, the brightest star in the middle of the crown, and even rival Polaris for several weeks.
Spike south to Spica, the hot blue star in Virgo, then curve to Corvus the Crow, a four-sided grouping. The arms of Virgo harbor the Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies, with thousands of “island universes” in the Spring sky. We are looking away from the place of the thickly populated Milky Way, now on the southern horizon, toward the depths of intergalactic space. Just SW of Spica is one of the most famous, the Sombrero, M-104.
Farther south than most Americans, we get a fine view of the closest and brightest globular star clusters, Omega Centauri (the main photo) on May evenings. From a dark sky site, you can spot it with your naked eyes about 12 degrees above the southern horizon when it is at its highest in the south, about 9 p.m. at the end of the month. Ideally, observe it at the beach, where the Gulf is your southern horizon. Due to its extreme southern placement, we only have about an hour when it is highest in the southern sky to observe it at all; if you do get a chance, it is one of the finest sights in big scopes.
To the northeast, Hercules rises, with his body looking like a butterfly. It contains one of the sky’s showpieces, M-13, the globular cluster faintly visible with the naked eye. It is much more conveniently placed for observing all night and is a real showpiece in any big scope.
We return to Pensacola Beach Pavilion for our Casino Beach gazes at sunset on these weekends: May 22-23, June 19-20, July 24-25, August 14-15, September 18-19, and wrap them up on October 16-17. At the first quarter moon, these are fine public gazes with free parking, telescope viewing, sky interpretation, star charts, and astrophotography with your smartphones. Venus and Jupiter will be out for planetary observing with our scopes as well this summer.
We await confirmation of our new dates for our public gaze at Big Lagoon State Park west of Pensacola. We will post these on our calendar and Facebook page as soon as they are set. There is a $6 admission charge for the State Park, but we have one of the darkest sites on the Gulf Coast for our deep sky work. Be sure to check in at the gate before it closes at sunset.
Our next EAAA club meeting is on May 29.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers and our local star gazes for the public, visit our website and join us on Facebook. Gaze info/requests at (850) 291-9334. You can contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers, at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. When clear skies permit at the Airport Approach on Langley for special help for beginners, you can contact me, Dr. Wayne Wooten, at johnwaynewooten@gmail.com.
