THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
(207) 780-4249 usm.maine.edu/planet
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
2021-2022: LXXXV
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
-Confucius.
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
March 2022 Night Sky Calendar Part I
Spring has started....meteorologically!
Astronomically, however, we'll be imprisoned like beguilingly adorable, yet pathetically helpless orphans in winter's dark, dank, dreary dungeon for almost three more weeks. Such is the situation at the beginning of March. However, despair not, fair weather fans, for the Sun continues its inexorable ascent and consequently rises earlier and sets later each day. The winter star patterns such as Orion and his entourage of attendant constellations march farther westward toward the setting Sun which will slowly consume them all starting around late April. The Summer stars, led by the bear-baiting sheepherder Bootes, will soon infiltrate the evening sky. When Bootes rises, Corona Borealis (the northern crown), Hercules (the quintessential warrior) and Lyra the Harp will be sure to follow.
Meanwhile, in the circumpolar sky, we'll watch the Big Dipper, that famous asterism within Ursa Major, rising toward the apex while Cassiopeia, the seated Queen who is the 6 o'clock to the Big Dipper's moon, descending toward the horizon. The gradual return of vernal warmth is always marked by the Dipper's rise in the northern sky.
.jpeg%22&N=ursa-major_1 (1).jpeg)
As we move along the zodiac, we bid adieu to Pisces the Fish, the constellation in which the vernal equinox point currently resides. Hence, Aries the Ram hangs just above the western evening sky, while Leo the Lion creeps toward the meridian: "in like a lion, out like a ram." Meanwhile, Virgo the Maiden, just liberated from her underground marriage chamber/prison, rises in the southeast and rejoins her harvest goddess mother Demeter. In September -which seems as though it is a decade in the future- Virgo will dissolve into the dusk, destined to return to Hades' gloomy lair once more.
This celestial procession continues this March as it has for hundreds of Marchs in the past and will for hundreds in the future. Celestial constants hanging above a world notorious for its unpredictability.
So, happy Spring, at least weather-wise.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Daily Astronomer: