Stargazing Tips
The sky is full of wonders every night of the week. Use our viewing
guide for the week ahead to plan your backyard outings.
March 20, 2006
Today is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, when the Sun
crosses the equator on its way north, marking the start of spring. The
Sun rises due east and sets due west, so it provides a true pointer to
these two cardinal directions.
March 21, 2006
The Milky Way is on good display on early spring evenings. You need to
get away from city lights to see its subtle glow, arcing from north to
south with a dip toward the west. That glow is the combined light of
millions of stars in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy.
March 22, 2006
One of the brightest stars in Leo, the lion, is Algieba. It's in the
middle of the lion's curving mane, with his body extending to the left.
Algieba is a binary star system. Seen with the unaided eye, though, the
stars blend together to form a single point of light.
March 23, 2006
The constellation Coma Berenices -- Berenices' Hair -- stands just south
of the Big Dipper's handle. The constellation is home to a grand
gathering of galaxies, called the Coma Cluster, which are about 350
million light-years away.
March 24, 2006
The Moon and the planet Venus stand side by side in the southeast at
dawn tomorrow. Venus looks like a brilliant star to the left of the
crescent Moon.
March 25, 2006
Venus stands farthest from the Sun for its current "morning-star"
appearance. The planet, which looks like an intensely bright star, is
well up in the southeast at first light. Tomorrow, a "fingernail"
crescent Moon stands a little below Venus.
March 26, 2006
A "hairy" constellation climbs the eastern sky this evening: Coma
Berenices. It represents the hair of an ancient queen. According to
legend, she sacrificed her hair to Aphrodite after her husband safely
returned from battle. Aphrodite placed the locks in the sky as a spray
of stars.
Unless otherwise specified, viewing times are local time regardless of
time zone, and are good for the entire Lower 48 states (and, generally,
for Alaska and Hawaii).
Copyright 1995-2006 The University of Texas McDonald Observatory
http://stardate.org/
for me here I got to pound some sticks in the ground to point the way
for my back yard sky gazeing weight lifting area.
been burning, 3 garden area .
6th day on a bad rip in lower back.
Not to worry I beleave this is biblecal
truely Ido............... ..... ................
and .............. ..... ...................
and ................. ........ ...................
and Bill now really that middle finger was not nessicery............
........ ...................
42°N,83°W 90°N,180° 90°lat,
3rd planet from the Sun.
Milky Way, Orion arm.
U.S.A., Michigan. west of Port Huron
Bottum of Lake Huron.