South Wales Argus astronomer Jonathan Powell has penned his latest Night Sky column. He says:

TO START this month, acknowledgement of a remarkable milestone in astronomy with the first direct visual evidence of a black hole.

The sheer scale of the impact on humankind of the image cannot go unmentioned in the Night Sky article, as at last, all the theories and ideas about black holes now have a specific picture to which they can be tagged.

For here, located 55 million light-years from Earth and measuring 23.6 billion miles across, lies a supermassive black hole.

The hole is positioned right at the centre of the huge M87 galaxy which itself contains one trillion stars.

This is indeed an historic moment, the first view humanity has had of a black hole, and the first sight of a one-way door out of our Universe.

Behind all of this, special acknowledgement to Dr Katie Bouman, the woman whose development of a computer program made taking the image possible. A global array of telescopes performing in unison to capture the eventual image.

Closer to home, Mercury makes for a good target in the morning sky late month, look to the northwest just before sunrise. Venus too climbs into view late May, watch for a bright ‘star’ low to the east again before sunrise.

Photographs and event information can be sent to at TheNightSky@themoon.co.uk

Moon phases: New Moon May 4th; First Quarter May 12th; Full Moon May 18th; Third Quarter May 26th;

Start of May: Sun rises at 5.44 a.m. Sets at 8.34 p.m. End of May: Sun rises at 5.01 a.m. Sets at 9.18 p.m.

Copies of my book Cosmic Debris and Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds, are available at www.springer.com