Nan at Night by Nan Hoyt
-Thursday the 12th: Spica, the brightest star of Virgo, is a little to the lower left of the moon as they climb into view in the southeast by around 10 p.m. The moon will move closer to Spica as they scoot across the south during the night.
-Friday the 13th: Oooooh, watch out for black cats and ladders! Fifty years ago on March 13, 1959, a camera launched from White Sands, New Mexico, snapped the first ultraviolet photograph of the Sun from an altitude of 123 miles. A high altitude was needed because Earth’s atmosphere prevents ultraviolet rays from reaching the surface.
Also on this day, twenty years ago in 1989, a massive solar flare knocked out power to 6 million people in Quebec. The flare also affected the operation of several orbiting satellites.
-Saturday the 14th: Leo, the lion, sails overhead tonight. Leo’s brightest star is Regulus, which is so bright you can see it even through light-polluted city skies. The star is well up in the east early this evening and climbs across the south during the night.
-Sunday the 15th: After passing “behind” the Sun a few weeks ago, Jupiter is creeping into view in the early morning sky. The planet rises a couple of hours before the Sun and is low in the east-southeast at first light. It looks like a brilliant star.
-Monday the 16th: Antares, the brightest star of Scorpius, precedes the moon across the sky early tomorrow. They are in good view almost due south at first light. Antares is the bright orange star to the right of upper right of the moon.
-Tuesday the 17th: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Virgo is climbing skyward at nightfall. In ancient times, the constellation was associated with the harvest because its stars firs appeared in the dawn sky at harvest time. Its brightest star, Spica, represents an ear of wheat.
-Wednesday the 18th: The divided halves of a snake are moving into the evening sky. Known as Serpens, the serpent, they rise beginning in late evening. The constellation is split because the snake wraps around the intervening stars of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer.
-Thursday the 19th: The Milky Way is relatively barren during March. It forms a thin arch that stretches from north to south in mid-evening, with a dip toward the western horizon. We are looking away from the Milky Way’s dense core toward a thinly populated region of the galaxy.
