Last Minute Astronomer
Last Minute Astronomer, bringing astronomy to normies and nerds, with little time to spare
Last Minute Astronomer
April 2025
Full text available at the Cosmos Safari Blog
April of 2025 brings us the annual Lyrid meteor shower, all the naked-eye planets, and plenty of lunar close encounters.
I’m Rob, your Last Minute Astronomer, bringing astronomy to normies and nerds, with little time to spare.
We’ll start by talking about this month’s big events, then highlight the naked eye planets, and finish up with the lunar phases, so you can plan ahead better than me.
EVENTS
22nd – LYRID METEOR SHOWER – Around 10-20 meteors per hour, the Lyrids are a minor shower, but a meteor shower indeed. And this year, the Moon will rise very early in the morning, meaning we have clear skies until that point, and even then, it’s not so bright. The shower is greatest on the 22nd, but you might see some on the 21st and 23rd as well. Just remember each meteor is a piece of debris left over from a comet, and we’re crashing into it at over 100,000 miles per hour, which crushes the atmosphere it hits, heating it up and causing the bright flash. There is no real best time to see these this year, but the later, the better. You never know when you’ll see something awesome.
Some advice for watching:
Find a dark location and lie down in a reclining chair or something that insulates you from the ground.
Check the weather to see if the skies will be clear
Adapt your eyes to the dark by staying away from light sources or using a red light if you need to look at a star chart or not trip over something.
Naked-eye PLANETS
Sunset
Jupiter - Halfway up the sky in the W after sunset
Mars - Almost straight above us after sunset=
Morning
Venus, Saturn, Mercury – A GREAT little challenge for the month!
LUNAR CYCLE
Evening Crescents (look West after Sunset)
First Quarter Moon – 4th (Visible until midnight)
Evening Gibbous (Mostly lit, after Sunset)
Full Moon – 12th (Visible all night)
Waning Gibbous (Mostly lit, rises later at night)
Last Quarter Moon – 20th (Visible midnight into the morning)
Morning Crescents (look East in the AM)
New Moon – 27th (darkest skies)
LUNAR CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
The Moon will be traveling across the sky as normal, passing by some planets at particular times.
2nd - Find the Waxing Crescent Moon just 5˚ above bright Jupiter, setting around midnight.
5th - The just-past-first-quarter Moon will be just 3˚ above Mars, setting around 3:30am.
22nd - 26th - Get out before 6am and look East over a fairly clear horizon. Venus, Saturn, and Mercury will be hanging out directly East, less than 15˚ above the horizon.
30th - Coming back around again, the VERY thin crescent Moon is just 6˚ above Jupiter, setting around midnight.
And that’s the sky for this month! If you find this advance notice of the night sky helpful, please support this work by finding Last Minute Astronomer on Patreon, and don’t forget to follow Last Minute Astronomer on Facebook and Instagram. Till next month, I’m the Last Minute Astronomer wishing you fruitful plans and clear skies. Music was produced by Deep Sky Dude and used with permission.
