Taurus the Bull is the center of attention early in the month. Gleaming Venus (mag. -4.5) guides the eye to his shoulder, grazing the Pleiades star cluster on April 2, while tawny Mars seems positioned to give him a second orange eye. Mars is now almost the same color and brightness as Aldebaran (mag. +0.87), the brightest star in Taurus. Aldebaran is his glaring peach-colored eye, directed warily, we can imagine, at nearby Orion the Hunter. Aldebaran tops one arm of the the bull's V-shaped face, which is formed by another well-known star cluster: the Hyades.

Aldebaran itself is not a member of the group — we see it in projection against the more distant cluster. To give this early evening scene some depth, consider that Aldebaran lies 65 light-years away, the Hyades stars 150 light-years away, and the tight Pleaides cluster lies 440 light-years off. Look for all three in the western sky as the glow of twilight fades.

Mars, on the other hand, is a foreground object just 185 million miles away by midmonth. It is still growing fainter and more distant, but characteristically resists the slow westward drag of the starry sky. It is now fainter (mag. +1.5) and higher than Aldebaran, and the two increase their separation as the month progresses.

Between March 22 and April 2, one could find every classical planet just by looking for the moon. Although Mercury has dropped from visibility, the trick still works for Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter later this month.

On April 22, look for brilliant Venus above the slender crescent moon. Notice how much closer Venus and Mars have become. When darkness falls completely, return outside and star gaze in the cool night air. You may be surpised by a few fleeting meteor trails, for this is also the night the Lyrid meteor shower peaks.

The next evening, April 23, brings the moon nearest to Mars.

On April 24, Saturn (mag. -0.3) will be the brightest star-like object closest to the waxing crescent moon.

Brilliant Jupiter (mag. -2.3) is again the last in line for a brush past the moon. Look for it high in the southeastern sky

On April 19, the month's new moon passes in front of the sun to bring a partial solar eclipse to the southern Atlantic, southern Africa, Madagascar, and part of Antarctica.

Two weeks later, on May 4, the full moon will pass into Earth's shadow for a total lunar eclipse. This is the third eclipse in a tetrad, a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, and the only one not visible from North America. Instead, the eclipse favors viewers from Australia, across Asia and Africa, to South America.

Two comets will become prominent in the coming weeks, initially for viewers south of the equator. The first of these to be available for convenient viewing in the northern hemisphere will be C/2001 Q4, discovered by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system and thus named for it: NEAT. It will be visible low in the southwestern sky on May 5 and will pass closest to Earth (0.321 AU, or about 29.9 million miles) on May 6. By May 12, it will be visible between Jupiter and Saturn near the Beehive star cluster. The comet is expected to brighten to between mag. +2 and +3 and should be visible to the unaided eye from a very dark location; binoculars will be required almost everywhere else.

Comet 2002 T7 (LINEAR) enters the picture for northern viewers as May closes, about the time comet NEAT fades to fourth magnitude. Named for another detection system, comet LINEAR will be outbound and fading slightly by the time it enters the evening sky. LINEAR will be visible in bright twilight at the end of May and should be about twelve degrees above the west-southwest horizon in the half-hour after sunset by June 5.

For detailed finder charts and information on how these comets compare with the "great comets" of the past, see the May issue of Astronomy magazine. Look for it on newsstands!

• Astronomy.com, web site of Astronomy  magazine
• Calculate sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and more for your locale (USNO)
• Griffith Observatory Online Sky Report
• Printable all-sky star chart from Skymaps.com
• See what Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter look like through a telescope (USNO)
• See day and night across the Earth and what the Earth looks like from the moon (USNO)