<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark your calendars if you are planning to celebrate the <\/span>Vernal (or Spring) Equinox<\/b>.\u00a0 One of the two days of the year when all points on the globe receive 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, this year\u2019s event happens on<\/span> March 20 at 5:24 p.m. EDT<\/b>.\u00a0 What happens at this precise point in time?\u00a0 The <\/span>Sun\u2019s<\/b> vertical ray crosses the <\/span>Earth\u2019s Equator<\/b>.\u00a0 If you happen to be standing somewhere on this imaginary line at that time, the Sun would appear directly overhead.\u00a0 You may have noted that the time is listed as EDT – that is because the switch over to <\/span>Daylight Saving Time<\/b> will occur at<\/span> 2:00 a.m. on March 12<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Sun\u2019s \u2018movement\u2019 is actually caused by the Earth\u2019s 23.5 degree tilt from the Earth\/Sun plane – while the Earth travels in orbit around the Sun, its axis of rotation always points at the same point in space (<\/span>Polaris, the North Star<\/b>).\u00a0 In the Northern Hemisphere, we are tilted toward the Sun in our summer months and away from the Sun in our winter months.\u00a0 Earth\u2019s position for the Spring and Fall Equinoxes means neither hemisphere is pointed toward or away, thus giving all points of the globe equal day and night.\u00a0 \u2018Equinox\u2019 literally means \u2018equal night\u2019.\u00a0 I do not know about you, but after the long dark nights of December and January, I am ready to celebrate the halfway point to the longest daylight of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The <\/span>Lunar Cycle<\/b> for March will see the month begin just after the <\/span>First Quarter Moon<\/b> of February 27, followed by the <\/span>Full Moon<\/b> on March 7, the <\/span>Last Quarter<\/b> on March 14, with the <\/span>New Moon <\/b>reset to begin the next cycle of phases on March 21.\u00a0 The last Lunar event for this month will be the <\/span>First Quarter Moon <\/b>on March 28.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The only morning planet of note this month will be <\/span>Saturn<\/b> which will enter the morning twilight at mid-month.\u00a0 Look for <\/span>The Ringed Planet <\/b>low in the sky 30 minutes before sunrise.\u00a0 It will be located in the ESE just left of the <\/span>old Crescent Moon <\/b>in the same early twilight on March 19 to give you at least one reference point to look for.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are still a host of evening planets one can enjoy this month.\u00a0 The brightest continue to be <\/span>Venus <\/b>and <\/span>Jupiter <\/b>which will only be a half a degree apart on March 1.\u00a0 In other words, they will be as close together as they can get without Venus passing directly in front of Jupiter.<\/span><\/p>\n With Venus shining at magnitude -4.0 and Jupiter at mag -2.1, it will be an impressive pairing.\u00a0 As they pull apart, the distance will increase from half the width of your little finger nail held at arm’s length to twice the distance of a little finger\/index finger \u2018hook \u2018em horns\u2019 salute that spans 15 degrees of the sky.\u00a0 Changing from .5 degrees to 30 degrees in a month means one can almost see the change in spacing on a nightly basis.\u00a0 Look for both in the western sky an hour after sunset – they won\u2019t be hard to find.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Mars<\/b> begins March 107.3 million miles from Earth, a distance that will increase to 135.2 million miles by the end of the month.\u00a0 In the simplest terms, Mars will be getting farther away and shrinking.\u00a0 The <\/span>Red Planet<\/b> won\u2019t be difficult to find, either.\u00a0 It is high overhead and will pass between the tips of the horns of <\/span>Taurus the Bull<\/b> on March 11.\u00a0 As it passes from Taurus to <\/span>Gemini, the Twins<\/b>, its magnitude will decrease from 0 to1.\u00a0 <\/span>Mercury <\/b>will move into the evening sky later in the month after reaching superior conjunction on March 17 (it will be easier to locate next month).\u00a0 <\/span>Uranus <\/b>will be faint when Venus passes it on March 29, 30, and 31, but observers may be able to find it shining at mag 5.8 using binoculars or a small telescope under ideal viewing conditions.\u00a0 Look for the pairing between W and WNW two hours after sunset..<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As long as Venus will be easy to spot all month, it can be used as a guide to find the very <\/span>young Crescent Moon <\/b>low in the west 40 minutes after sunset on March 22.\u00a0 This sliver of Moon will almost appear to be sitting on top of Venus.\u00a0 The event also marks the start of Ramadan.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Did you have better luck than I did observing <\/span>Comet C\/2022 E3 (ZFT)<\/b>, otherwise known as the <\/span>Green Comet<\/b>?\u00a0 The weather and full Moon hampered my attempts to spot it but the number of photos posted on various internet sites more than made up for my lack of clear skies.\u00a0 There is an excellent time-lapse clip created by astrophotographer Miguel Charo that stitches together 521 images he captured over ten hours of observing from an observatory in Portugal.\u00a0 The Dark Sky Alqueva Observatory averages 286 clear nights per year.\u00a0 You can find the clip by searching for\u00a0 PetaPixel.com\/greencomet .\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Topo Piece Video:\u00a0 In honor of the Green Comet, here is Skillet with\u00a0Watching for Comets . . .<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mark your calendars if you are planning to celebrate the Vernal (or Spring) Equinox.\u00a0 One of the two days of the year when all points on the globe receive 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, this year\u2019s event happens on March 20 at 5:24 p.m. EDT.\u00a0 What happens at this precise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2760"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2763,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2760\/revisions\/2763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}