While we continue to learn how to dodge threats to our physical health from the pandemic, spring is arriving with opportunities to nurture mind and body in the safety of the outdoors.
Let morning stargazing begin! The darkness of night, when all naked eye stars and constellations are visible, prevails until about 5:35 a.m. this week and 5:50 a.m. at month’s end.
Every year, from about July 17 through Aug. 24, planet Earth orbits through the debris field of Comet Swift-Tuttle, the parent comet of the Perseid meteor shower.
While venturing out at nightfall to enjoy the asterisms, be sure to appreciate the Crow careening in the south and the full figure of the Lion striding high in the southwest.
In Greek mythology, the Crow, Apollo’s sacred bird, got into trouble that resulted in the god catapulting the offender and his companions into the sky.
Even faint shooting stars may be visible in dark skies in locations away from artificial light. The peak of the Eta Aquariids is predicted to be before dawn Sunday morning, May 5.
Wherever the Big Dipper is in the sky, simply “arc to Arcturus” to be assured that you have located the second brightest star visible in northern skies.
Below and left of Jupiter, relatively faint planet Mercury twinkles close above the skyline while, to the right of Mercury, red star Antares, also pale in the dawn light, rises into the winter morning sky.
By Friday, the 29th, a half moon, last quarter, rises close to midnight, accompanying springtime’s quintessential all-night constellation, Leo the Lion, visible now during the hours after midnight.
Where the glistening bay reached the sea, a rosy red rounded radiance colored the skyline, a concentrated shape of color above the east-southeast horizon.
At the first sight of the clearing, I was wonderstruck by an aerial display of countless blinking golden lights and dipping, curving, white gold lines streaking all over the meadow from the ground up to the treetops.
