Skywatch
While visiting the Virgin Islands you will be able to see five planets. When the western sky is just turning dark after sunset, the first star-like object to appear will be the very bright, white planet Venus. Sunlight reflects off of Venus' clouds and since the planet is so relatively close to Earth, it is very bright. In fact, Venus is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. Since it is so bright, as its light passes through the atmosphere around the Earth the air breaks the white light up and Venus can be seen to seem to change color from white, to re, to blue. With this effect, and being so bright, Venus is the celestial object most often reported as a UFO.
Once the sky grows dark, look high in the west for a bright red star-like object. Not as bright as Venus, but definitely red. This is the planet Mars. Nearby Mars you will find a bright red-orange star, not as bright as Mars. This is Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, the Lion. Regulus is the period at the base of a backwards question mark. The top of the question marks forms the lion's head. A little higher in the sky a triangle made of fainter stars forms the lion's hind quarters and tail.
East of Leo are two bright objects, the planet Jupiter and the star Spica. Spica is a grain of wheat being held in the hand of the goddess of the harvest, Virgo. Once you have found Spica, look toward the South and you may be able to find the Southern Cross. If you turn around and look to the North you should see the Big Dipper. From the Virgin Islands both are visible at the same time.
Around 2:00 a.m. Jupiter will rise in the east. Wait a few hours for Jupiter to climb higher in the sky and the largest of all the planets will be easy to locate.
So, Venus: bright in the west just after sunset; Mars: high in the west once the sky grows dark; Saturn: high in the east; and, Jupiter in the early morning hours. What about the fifth planet? You see it all the time - the Earth! The night of May 5th-6th is the maximum of the Eta Aquarid meteor show. This is not one of the better meteor showers to see, so you may not want to stay up until between mid-night and dawn to see perhaps ten meteors, or shooting stars, per hour.
