The end of April and the beginning of May featured plenty of rain and cloudy conditions. Going into the middle and end of the month, the pattern favors better weather, especially for viewing the night sky in upstate New York.

This image was taken by one of our viewers, Crista Wignet from Scio, N.Y. of the stormy weather that we saw over the past month.

As we get into the middle of May, there will be a couple of opportunities to view the International Space Station travel across our sky. There will be other passes on Sunday, May 11, at 8:48 p.m. and 10:24 p.m., Monday, May 12, at 9:36 p.m., Tuesday, May 13, at 8:48 p.m., Thursday, May 15, at 8:49 p.m., and Sunday, May 18, at 11:17 p.m. All of these passes can be found by clicking here and searching your city. This week's best pass will be Saturday night at 9:53 p.m. for six minutes and 34 seconds. It will begin in the southwest, travel overhead and to the northeast.

On May 12, we will see the full moon for the month. May’s moon is known as the “Flower Moon” for the abundance of spring flowers this time of the year. It will appear 7% smaller than normal as it a bit further from the Earth than typical.

At the end of the month, you can wake up early in the morning to see a few planets in our sky. On May 23, Venus, Saturn and the moon will be visible around 4-5 a.m. While this is early, it does provide early-risers with a neat sight to see in the morning.

Looking at the weather, there are numerous clear nights ahead. There will be some isolated showers and clouds getting closer to the middle of the week. Overall, trends look drier stretching into the end of May, this hopefully will lead to some clearer nights in the weeks ahead.