May Night Skies Over Placencia
LOOK UP & SPOT THE SPACE STATION!

The International Space Station (ISS) will be passing over us on a general northwest-to-southeast path this month.†† Generally it is not too hard to spot since it is the biggest and brightest of all the man-made objects in the sky and nearly as bright as Sirius, the brightest star. At its very brightest it is sometimes even as bright as Jupiter!† Its solar panel collection measures 240-feet in width, it is 146-feet in length, and it stands 90-feet high and weighs 412,000 pounds or 206-tons (The average weight of an elephant is 3.9 tons).†
The Space Station circles the Earth at an average altitude of 240 miles and at a speed of 18,000 m.p.h., it can appear to move as fast as a high-flying jet airliner, sometimes taking up to five minutes to cross the sky. There are 5 opportunities this month for spotting the International Space Station from our beaches of Placencia:

COMET ALERT
Also this month, the Comet known as Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 will be making its closest pass to the Earth. It is first visible during the evening hours and can be spotted just south of the bright star Vega as it rises on the northeast horizon on May 7, on the NNE horizon around 9:30pm on May 9, and just above the eastern horizon around 9PM by May 17. Its even possible that debris from this broken-up comet will have spread out enough to cause an impressive meteor shower.† And that very bright star on the Eastern horizon just before dawn is Venus! AND FINALLY, Speaking of the Moon: First Quarter: 5 May, Full Moon (also known as the ‘Flower Moon’): 13 May, Last Quarter: 20 May, New Moon: 27 May. Best days for fishing this month, according to the Moon, are: Best: (***): 2nd, 3rd, and 12th; Better (**): 1st and 11th; and Good (*): 13th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 28th, 29th and 30th. Happy Fishing!