Mon Mar 10,2025 SUN, SOLAR YEAR AND ECLIPTIC
Watch the sun and you’ll discover it gets around. But of course you can’t watch the sun - it’s too bright to look at without hurting your eyes. Assuming you could see the sun and stars at the same time, you’d notice the sun drifts against the background of the stars. If we think of the stars as being laid out on an invisible sphere, and there are 360 degrees of angle on a line inscribed on that sphere, then the sun moves along that line almost 1 degree a day. After 365 days, the sun would be back where it started. A solar year, then is the amount of time it takes the sun to go once around the heavens, and that invisible line that traces out its path is called the ecliptic. The constellations through which the sun passes each year make up the zodiac, and the ecliptic is its central line.
Tue Mar 11,2025 CANOPUS
If you're outside after sunset tonight, or on any clear evening this month, you should notice a bright star-like object low in the southern sky. It hovers there near the horizon, and at first you might think it was an airplane's landing light. If you've been watching too much TV, you might even think it was a UFO. This particular UFO is easy to identify - It's the star Canopus, second brightest star of the night sky. Canopus, an important star for navigators, is in the constellation of Carina the keel; it marks the rudder of the famous mythological ship Argo, which carried Jason and his crew in search of the Golden Fleece. Folks in the Northern U.S. cannot see this star - the curvature of the earth blocks it from view. Only at southerly latitudes like Florida can Canopus be seen.
Wed Mar 12,2025 URANUS AND PLUTO DISCOVERIES
On March 13th 1781 a musician named William Herschel discovered another planet using a telescope he'd built himself it was a tiny pale blue dot too faint to be seen with the unaided eye this 7th Planet turned out to be roughly two billion miles out from the Sun so right away Herschel proposed naming the planet George technically George's star this was an honor of George the third who at that time was the King of England now this was in the 1781 and the Americans and the French were still fighting a war with George the third so this suggestion didn't take for many years folks just called it herschel's Planet but eventually it was decided to call it Uranus this is better who in mythology was the father of Saturn.
Thu Mar 13,2025 FULL MOON, TOTAL LUNAR ECLPSE
The moon is full tonight. This is the sap moon, a time when the sap of the maple tree was tapped and sugared down for its syrup. The Celts call this the Big Winds moon, same as the Choctaw Indians. To the Algonquin Indians it is the crust moon, because frequent thawing and refreezing of snow on the ground formed an icy crust. There will be a lunar eclipse tonight after midnight, and the Treasure Coast Astronomical Society and I will be out observing it at the Hallstrom Planetarium in Fort Pierce. The public is invited to attend, but the first “bite” of the moon made by the earth’s inner shadow or umbra won’t happen until 1:09 am and totality won’t occur until 2:26 am. Dress warm and bring a lounge chair for viewing this eclipse.
Fri Mar 14,2025 CAESAR AND THE IDES OF MARCH
Tomorrow is the Ides of March, that is, March 15th. On this day in 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated, and we think of Shakespeare’s play, in which Caesar is warned to beware the Ides of March. What are the Ides? The Romans divided their calendar month into three parts, with three specific days serving as benchmarks, based on the phases of the moon. The first day of the month, marked by the new moon, was called the Kalends (from which we get the word calendar;) A week later came the first quarter moon and the Nones; and the middle of the month, the 13th day or in some cases the 15th, when the moon was full - that was the Ides. These terms are not familiar to us today, but they were well-known to the Romans, and also to Europeans in Shakespeare’s time.
