Spring has sprung in Northern Arizona, and with it comes the return of budding flora and emerging fauna. In like fashion, the sky also graces us with clusters in bloom, and the slithering serpents that herald their homecoming.
The constellation Serpens is often depicted as two halves of a snake, as held by Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. The snake was observed to shed its skin, an act seen by the ancients as a sort of rebirth and resurrection, and the return of the constellation Serpens brings the rebirth of the plant and animal life that laid dormant throughout the winter. The serpent begins to rise in the Eastern skies during the month of May and brings with it a host of deep sky objects for your viewing pleasure.
Messier 5 (M5) is a globular cluster near the head of the Serpent, with more than 100,000 stars densely packed into a ball of space about 165 light years in diameter. Despite having so many individual stars, its distance from Earth at around 25,000 light years makes it appear to the naked eye as a single, faint star. Through your binoculars you will be able to discern that it is not a single object, however larger telescopes can resolve many of the brighter individuals, which includes one hundred five variable stars, 2 millisecond pulsars, and a dwarf nova.
The entirety of M5 is speeding away from our solar system at more than 50km/s, so by the time you finish reading this article, it will have moved a full Earth diameter further away from your backyard telescope. The most daring Backyard Astronomers can also hunt galaxies off the head of The Serpent. Hoag’s Object is an extremely rare ring galaxy, and Seyfert’s Sextet is a group of six galaxies which are gravitationally bound like a globular cluster, albeit over a much grander scale.
For early-bird astronomers, Jupiter and the Moon will be dancing together on the morning of May 17th. Jupiter will be hidden behind the Moon as it rises from the Eastern Horizon, in what is known as a Lunar Occultation. Jupiter will re-emerge from behind Luna at 5:17 AM MST, with sunrise just a few minutes later at 5:26 AM, potentially obscuring the view from all but the most dedicated observers.
The Backyard Astronomer 