May 5
The Herdsman's Star
Sun Position
The Sun is in Taurus at about +16.4° declination. In the Northern Hemisphere, early May evenings are long and mild. Southern Hemisphere observers note sunset arriving earlier each evening.
Sky Highlight
The Eta Aquariid meteor shower reaches its peak around May 5–6 each year. Earth passes through the densest part of the debris trail left by Halley's Comet. Southern Hemisphere observers can expect rates up to 50 meteors per hour from a dark site; northern observers typically see 20–30, mostly low in the southeast sky before dawn.
Deep Sky Object
M5 (NGC 5904), globular cluster in Serpens, about 24,500 light-years away. Often considered the finest globular cluster visible from mid-northern latitudes, with a tightly compressed, brilliant core and easy resolution into individual stars at modest apertures. Visible from both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Nekkar (β Boötis) is a yellow giant 219 light-years distant, spectral class G8III, in the constellation of the herdsman whose Greek name it echoes. The name comes from an Arabic word for the herdsman himself, one of the rarer cases where a star's name and its constellation tell the same story.
Around This Date
- May 5, 1961Alan Shepard became the first American in space on the Freedom 7 suborbital mission, reaching an altitude of approximately 187 kilometers.
- May 5, 1926Robert Goddard began development of a rocket twenty times larger than his previous models, constructing a new test tower and advancing key technologies including flow regulators, multi-injection combustion chambers, and an electrically fired igniter.
The meteors arrive like something the comet forgot, burning off on the way in.