April's full moon, known as the Pink Moon and Paschal moon, will will be visible this tonight as the first full moon of spring and is expected to rise over the UK at around 9pm tonight and will be joined by Spica a bright blue star.
This years first full moon of Spring will look slightly dimmer and smaller on Saturday night, although you might not notice. This is because it’s actually a micromoon the name given when the Moon is at its furthest point from Earth opposite of a supermoon when it appears bigger than usual as the moon is closer to Earth.
The micromoon will rise around 9pm and reach its peak at 1.22am on Sunday morning in the UK, according to the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
Those looking up last night will have seen an almost full moon rise in clear skies although tonight is forecast to be slightly cloudier that’s Friday night it should still offer a good view as the moon rises along with Spica.
The Pink Moon is named after a species of early blooming wildflower in the US which has pink flowers giving us the Pink Moon named by native Americans to keep track of the seasons.
This full moon also has religious significance in Christianity as the first full moon on or after the spring equinox and is called the Paschal moon used to set the date of Easter each year.
Following the pink moon event, there are eight more full moons to look out for this year, with supermoons occurring in October, November and December.
After this weekends Pink Moon according to the Farmers’ Almanac the names of the next eight full moons are:
May 12: Flower moon
June 11: Strawberry moon
July 10: Buck moon
August 9: Sturgeon moon
September 7: Corn moon
October 6: Harvest moon
November 5: Beaver moon
December 4: Cold moon
But tonight’s pink moon will not be the only astronomical show the Pink Moon will be joined by a bright blue star visible without any specialist equipment.
Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo and the 16th brightest star in the known universe.
The star has a mass 11.43 times greater than our sun with a radius 7.5 times larger and produces 20,500 times more light than our own sun but appears fainter because the massive 'blue giant' is about 250 light years from Earth.
Tonight, spotting Spica due to its alignment with the moon will make spotting it even easier than normal as long as you have a roughly south view of the sky.
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