Saturn has returned to our central Ohio sky at last. No astronomical sight is more breathtaking, even in a small telescope, than Saturn’s celestial hat brim. Around 10 p.m., look for the ringed planet low in the southeastern sky as a yellow point of light.
This week, let’s dip into the email bag and see what we find.
March 20 marks the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. Spring is, of course, a time to shed your long woolen undies and revel in the joys of nature. The flowers will explode with color, the birds will sing their sweet songs and nature will be reborn after the long dead time of winter.
Every time I see the constellation Leo, the Lion, rise majestically in the northeast, I think of a little poem by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire:
Tom’s been out stargazing 12 nights in a row, so he’s too tired to write his column this week. Instead, he has asked the intrepid CAPTAIN ASTRO to answer some of the emails that have been pouring in from readers.
Here’s a deceptively simple question we recently got at Perkins Observatory: Do the stars move?Not too long ago, asking such questions got you burned at the stake. These days I can give the answer in the newspaper. Yes, they move, but not in the way you might think. Much of the motion we see is illusory.
I’m a teacher by trade, and December can be a trying time for pedagogics. What with recalcitrant students, big stacks of papers to mark, sleepless nights — most of them cloudy and starless — and cold, snowy drives to work, December is not the most enlivening of months.
The Christmas shopping season is upon us, and a child’s fancy often turns to thoughts of telescopes. I’ve had several requests to expand on my comments about telescope buying and the accessories associated therewith, so here goes: