
Night Sky: What's in the sky this week and Helios display
Helios is the brainchild of artist Luke Jerram with his intriguing seven-metre representation of the Sun being placed on display on the South Lawn at Dyffryn Gardens from Friday, May 23 to Monday, May 26 and again from Thursday, May 29 to Sunday, June 1.
Helios, from the ancient Greek God who personifies the Sun, is on a nationwide tour and this is the Sun's only stop in Wales before moving on.
Jerram has afforded incredible attention to detail so that each centimetre of the sphere represents 2,000 kilometres of the Sun's surface which all told has been cleverly combined with a NASA-inspired soundscape. Lizzie Smith Jones, general manager for National Trust Cymru, said: 'We're beyond thrilled to welcome Helios to Dyffryn Gardens.'
The planet Jupiter finally slips into the evening twilight during the last week of May, meaning that it will be lost in the Sun's glare during June. However, on the evening of Wednesday, May 28, there is a lovely pairing with Jupiter positioned directly below a thin crescent Moon. Whilst we will lose Jupiter, we still have the red planet Mars in the evening sky for a good while yet.
On Friday, May 29, the Moon features again in the western sky after sunset but this time accompanied with the two brightest stars in the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. Forming a nice triangular shape, look for the Moon, then sweep upward to find Pollux to the left and Castor to the right.
Venus continues to dominate the sky before dawn, easily recognisable as the 'morning star' above the eastern horizon, with Saturn rising ahead of Venus and remaining to its right, although it will appear noticeably fainter.
Spaceflight news and the next private astronaut mission has been pushed back from its planned launch on May 29. With no celebrities in sight on this occasion, the crew of Axiom Space's Ax-4 will head to the International Space Station.
Amongst the quartet will be Peggy Whitson, who has spent more time in space than any other American or woman, a staggering 675 days.
Ironically, another private space company, SpaceX, will provide the Falcon 9 rocket that will power the four to the ISS, where they will conduct scientific experiments.
With Wales' own Spaceport at Llanbedr Airfield in Snowdonia seemingly on hold, further proof that you don't need a base on land to launch space-bound rockets as Galactic Energy, a privately owned Chinese company, successfully dispatched its Ceres-1 rocket with four satellites onboard from a ship at sea.
The International Space Station makes several appearances during the coming days, although the window for sighting the second of these is rather short. On Saturday, May 24, the ISS rises in the west at 10.04pm, setting in the southeast five minutes later. On Monday, May 26, the ISS rises in the southwest at 10.07pm, setting in the southwest one minute later.
Send your astrophotography pictures to: thenightsky@themoon.co.uk

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