Stars and Planets - Night Sky This Month | One-Minute Astronomer. April 2014 It’s another good month for stargazing, especially for northerners finally emerging from the clouds and deep snow of a long winter. Mars reaches opposition this month, rising in the east as the Sun sets in the west, and putting on its best show since 2007. Jupiter remains big, bright, and accessible in Gemini, its belts and zones and moons still resplendent in a small telescope.
Saturn rises a little before midnight and slowly brightens throughout the month. The Moon takes a part in two spectacles. 1 April. 3 April. A waxing crescent Moon passes through the Hyades on April 3, 2014 as seen from North America. 7 April. 8 April. Mars and Spica rise in the east-southeast at about 10 p.m. on April 8, 2014. 10 April. 15 April. 15 April. 17 April. Webcam imaging | Sky at Night Magazine. One of the greatest leaps in stargazing recently has been that it is now much easier to take pictures of celestial objects with a telescope. In days gone by, the astrophotographer had all manner of telescope-mounting regalia for his or her camera, not to mention the processing of the now almost forgotten film. Then the CCD camera arrived on the scene. This stands for charge-coupled device, an electronic light sensor that’s used in digital cameras.
At first, only astro imaging experts used them because CCDs came in big, heavy cameras with complicated controls and were expensive. But the era of digitally imaging the heavens had arrived. Pretty soon the CCD and its electronic-light-sensor cousin the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) chip found their way into a smaller, lighter, friendlier package called the webcam. These were cheap and simple to use, so it’s not surprising that they opened up digital astro imaging to everyone. Image: Steve Marsh Like this article? Astronomy Videos. Astronomy Videos" The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Life Cycle of Stars Video. Carl SaganThe Life Cycle of a Star. Eyes On The Sky > Home.