It’s going to be an exciting month for planets and we have 2 full moons again, just like January. They occur on March 1st and 31st. Since the months of the year don’t quite match the lunar cycles, 2 full moons in one month can be the result, and the second full moon is called a Blue Moon. It is rare and happens every two to three years. To have a year in which two months have two full moons is exceptionally rare! It can happen only three to five times in a century. The next time it will happen is 2037.

March is a dull month for meteor watchers. There are no major shows in the sky! A consolation prize is offered with the opportunity to see the zodiacal light especially in moon free early evenings from March 3rd to the 18th. Dust particles concentrated along the ecliptic, the plane of the planets, and give rise to the pyramid shape glow of the light. Look below the Pleiades star cluster which is to the right of the constellation Orion in the southwest. Try to find a nice dark sight to view this phenomenon. Another sight worth catching is Venus and Mercury close by each other in the west, especially on March 15th about half an hour after sunset. Jupiter is in the southeast at about midnight. By morning, Mars and Jupiter are in the south and Saturn can be found in the southeast.

Don’t forget that on March 11th is the only date we can use for arriving at work late because you forgot to change the clocks in your house. Remember – spring ahead, fall back!

Here’s a challenge for those of you who have telescopes. Haul them out and have a go at finding Uranus at evening twilight on the 28th. Venus will be 0.07 degrees north of Venus.

March 7th: The moon passes a 4 degrees north of Jupiter about 2 am EST.

March 9th: Last Quarter Moon. The moon passes 4 degrees north of Mars at 8 pm EST.

March 10th: The moon passes a close 2 degrees north of Saturn around 9 pm EST.

March 11th: The moon is at apogee – 402,300 Km. We switch to Daylight Savings time today. After today, the way we specify time shifts from EST (Eastern Savings Time) to EDT (Eastern Daylight Time).

March 17th: New Moon. Mercury is 4 degrees north of Venus at 9 pm EDT.

March 18th: The moon is 8 degrees south of Mercury at 2 pm EDT and is 4 degrees south of Venus at 3 pm EDT.

March 20th: The Vernal Equinox occurs at 12:15 EDT – First day of Spring. May the weather treat us well and let the maple sap flow.

March 24th: First Quarter Moon.

March 26th: The moon is at perigee – 366,960 Km.

March 28th: Venus passes 0.07 degrees north of Uranus.

March 31st: Full Moon – second of the month. The Full Moon on the 1st is called the Full Worm Moon. It is named after the worms that crawl out as the weather warms this month. The second Full Moon on is called a Blue Moon. I’m going to call it “The Second Chance to Find Worms Full Moon” because it usually isn’t all that hot here at the end of March. We can always hope.

Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion to find adventure in the sky. It contains star charts and is packed with information. It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications. A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine, SkyNews, can be ordered at the RASC website as well. Email me at fred.barrett2@sympatico,ca to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the sky.

Clear skies, Fred

I must apologize for not providing a column for the last 2 months. Some family matters needed to be addressed. But, I’m back.

If this column arrives at your mailbox before January 31st, be aware that a second Full Moon for January will occur on that date. It’s called a Blue Moon when 2 Full Moons occur in the same month. It is also a full lunar eclipse. Sadly our area is too far east and for us the eclipse begins around 6:45 am. The Moon sets long before it can reach totality. Don’t grieve too much. There’s another total lunar eclipse of the Moon due in July.

It’s Orion’s time of year. If you go outside about 7 pm in the evening, it is gloriously high in the south. It’s one of the highlights for winter observing. There are plenty of objects to explore and I’m going to point out some of them in Orion and nearby Taurus. Orion has an hourglass shape. Across the middle is a belt of 3 stars. Facing Orion, you will see on the left end of the belt, east, a few stars going downward.

This is known as Orion’s sword and at its end is the spectacular Orion Nebula. It can be viewed by eye but it is truly a sight in 7X50 wide field binoculars. By the way, the hourglass shape is only part of Orion’s full outline of stars. It would be more accurate to call the hourglass part an ‘asterism’. Many patterns of stars that resemble everyday objects are often named by what they resemble. They are often used as landmarks (or skymarks!) to help you find your way about the sky. An example would be that part of Ursa Major the looks like a big pot or dipper. Everyone calls it the Big Dipper. At the top of the hourglass of Orion are 3 stars that look like a roof. Draw a line from the leftmost star, Betelgeuse, through the middle star and follow it for about 15 degrees. You will arrive at Aldebaran, the baleful red eye of the constellation Taurus. Aldebaran is situated in the V shape cluster of stars known as the Hyades. In actual fact, Aldebaran, at 68 light years, is only half as far as the Hyades star cluster. It just happens to be in the line of sight.

Go straight north from the top of Orion for some 20 or so degrees and you will arrive at the constellation Auriga. It appears, while you face south, as an upside down house. Within its area are several star clusters – M35, M36, M37, M38. There is also a nebula – M1, the Crab Nebula, It is the expanding remnant of a supernova explosion that occurred in 1054. I was documented by Chinese, Korean and Japanese astronomers. Get your binoculars out and find them. They are quite easy.

If you continue on the same line you mentally drew from Orion for another 15 degrees, there is a second famous cluster in Taurus – the Pleiades. It is nicknamed the Seven Sisters. A keen eyed observer can see at least 7 stars naked eye. In binoculars many more can be found.

Taurus is considered to be one of the oldest constellations known and with the Pleiades, recognizable in cave drawings dating back to 12,000 BCE. In Greek myth, the god Zeus was transformed into a bull, Taurus. This was meant to capture the attention of Princess Europa. Pretty difficult to ignore a love struck bull! The Hyades cluster was meant to represent the sisters of Hyas, a great archer. When their brother was killed, their loss was so extreme, they died of grief. Zeus placed them in the sky to honour their mourning.

There are no meteor showers from early January to late April but an intrepid observer can go out on a clear night and see 6 to 12 meteors an hour. A special treat during the first half of February is the Zodiacal light. It continues into March but in the first half of February, it is more viewable because the Moon is out of the early evening sky. Miniscule particles of dust and debris line the plane of the Solar System along the positions of the Zodiac constellations.

Look to the western horizon and you will see this debris as a pyramid or cone shaped soft glow of light rising up into the sky. We haven’t had planets in the sky for a few months but February offers a few. Look west in late February just after sunset and you will see bright Venus about 5 degrees above the horizon with fainter Mercury just below it. Just before dawn Mars, Jupiter and Saturn assemble in the morning sky and provide exceptional views until the Sun comes up. Jupiter rises about 2 am in early February and by midnight by the end of the month. The dance of its 4 main moons is fascinating to follow from night to night. Mars follows Jupiter about an hour later. Saturn rises in the southeast about an hour before sunrise on February 1st. By the end of the month, Saturn is about 15 degrees high at twilight.

Feb, 7: Last quarter Moon.

Feb. 8: The waning crescent Moon is half way between Mars and Jupiter. The Moon passes 4 degrees north of Mars at midnight.

Feb. 11: The Moon is at apogee – 403,344 Km.

Feb. 15: New Moon.

Feb. 23: First quarter Moon.

Feb. 27: The Moon is at perigee – 361,819 Km.

Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion to find adventure in the sky. It contains star charts and is packed with information. It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications. A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine, SkyNews, can be ordered at the RASC website as well. Email me at fred.barrett2@sympatico,ca to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the sky.

Clear skies, Fred

The Backyard Astronomer

Another great celestial event is poised to light up the night sky. The annual Geminid meteor shower will peak on the night of December 13 into the morning of the 14th. As Earth crosses the debris field of asteroid 3200 Phaethon we will enjoy a predicted rate of 120 meteors seen per hour or one every 30 seconds on average. Tiny particles will enter our atmosphere at 35 km/sec producing long, slow and sometimes very bright streaks vapourizing about 80 kilometres high. The very thin waning crescent moon rising at 3:45 am. local time will not interfere with this year’s display. I consider this shower the best of the entire year.

Bundle up and enjoy nature in motion. You will be amazed.

Known as “The Backyard Astronomer”, Gary Boyle is an astronomy educator and monthly columnist for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He is now honoured with renaming of Asteroid (22406) Garyboyle. Follow him on Twitter: @astroeducator or email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The big news this month is that a partial eclipse of the Sun will occur in our area on August 21 starting about 1 pm. Our American friends can view the Total Eclipse along a path that curves across the middle of the United States. If you are ambitious enough and want to see the total eclipse in person, you will have to travel to the American south on a line through Kentucky to South Carolina. It’s an experience like no other and well worth the effort. In our area, we will have the shadow of the Moon cover about 60 to 70 percent of the Sun. Looking directly at the Sun to view the partial eclipse is a bad, bad idea. Welders goggles rated 12 or higher must be used and special eclipse glasses are available for sale at various places. DON’T use sunglasses. Eclipse appropriate eye protection is typically 100,000 times darker than sunglasses. Carefully inspect your eye protection for scratches or other damage. Alternately, an inexpensive way to view a partial eclipse is to punch a small hole in a thin piece of cardboard and place a sheet of flat, white paper about a foot beneath it. It will have an image of the partially shadowed Sun projected on it. Go out on a sunny day and practice. Try different distances between the pinhole and the sheet of paper. Vary the hole size too, from tiny to not so tiny.

I’m sorry about last month’s picture. Unfortunately, trying to show a few small, white dots on a mostly black picture printed on newsprint quality paper, is very difficult. In future, I will use illustrations where the picture or drawing is a negative version of real life. That is, black space will be white and stars will be black. This will help avoid last month’s problem. Actually, professional star charts are published in exactly this way for the same reasons that caused my error last month. You use an awful lot less black ink too. Of course, I will experiment with other methods of providing you with a useful visual aid but in doing so I’ll stick with the old KISS principle – Keep It Simple Stupid!
Use this month’s illustration to see if you can find some of the constellations. With you facing south, hold the illustration in front of you. If it’s hard to see, try using a flashlight with the lens covered with red tinted paper or plastic. White light will ruin your night vision but red light helps preserve it. The zenith, or straight overhead in the sky, is near the bright star Vega. Find Vega first, then work your way east to Deneb and then down to Altair. Now that you’re oriented, try figuring out the shapes of the constellations. The Milky Way, our galaxy, wends its way down through Cygnus, Aquila and passes through the asterism called The Teapot in the constellation Sagittarius. The centre of our galaxy is just above the spout of the teapot. At midmonth at 10pm, Saturn will be near the teapot’s spout.

The always anticipated Perseid meteor shower is active this month and peaks on the morning of August 12. Although a high of some 150 meteors is expected, the backlight of a bright gibbous waning Moon interferes with seeing a lot of those meteors. Still, it’s certainly worth going out on a warm summer evening during the week before and after the peak to watch the show.

In the evening sky Mercury and Jupiter are in the west and Saturn in the south. Saturn moves to the southwest by midnight. In the morning, Venus comes up about 2 ½ hours before the Sun and is bright and 20 degrees high just before dawn.

August 3: The Moon is 3 degrees north of Saturn at 3 am.
August 7: This month’s full moon is called the Full Sturgeon Moon. Sturgeon in the Great Lakes and nearby waters can be more easily caught during this month. August can be a dusty month and since dust in the air filters out all but the colour red, Full Red Moon is another name.
August 14: Get your telescope out and look for seven of Saturn’s moons near this beautiful ringed planet.
August 18: The Moon is at perigee (363,995 Kilometers).
August 19: The Moon is just south of Venus around 1 in the morning.
August 21: Partial solar eclipse. 60 to 70% coverage of the Sun.
August 30: The Moon is at apogee (401,962 Kilometers).
Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky. It contains star charts and is packed with information. It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications. A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.
Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.

Clear Skies! Fred

This month you will notice that there is a picture of a star field included with the column.  It encompasses the summer triangle in its entirety.  The circled star at the far left is Deneb at the tail of the Swan constellation Cygnus.  The star circled at middle top is Vega in the constellation Lyra.  The 3rd star at the bottom right is Altair in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle.  After the long summer evening has darkened enough, look approximately straight up and right in the middle of the band of the Milky Way.  These 3 bright stars should be prominent amongst all the others.  Compare what you see with the picture and hopefully the summer triangle will pop right out.  Vega, especially, is very bright.  Cygnus is a favourite sight in the sky for me.  With binoculars, a large number of star formations can be seen as you traverse the Swan from its tail to its beak.  I have even named my observatory after this large beautiful constellation – Cygnus Hill Observatory.  In future columns, I will experiment with wider fields of view for pictures.  I’ll also try hand drawn illustrations and drawings.  This column only has so much space but I know that together we will find out what works best.  Please send me your feedback and suggestions so I can work with you to make traveling the night sky an easier trip.

And now for the gardening section of this column.  I bought some flowers for the porch recently.  They caught my eye at the garden center.  Petunias come in all sorts of colours but this planter was filled with dark blue flowers that looked as though someone had splashed spots of white paint on them.  I took them home and showed them to my wife.  She asked me if they had a name.  Don’t know I said, Petunias?  She read the tag. They were called ‘Night Sky’ petunias. Beautiful!
The Milky way arcs over the zenith of the sky for the next couple of months.  It’s an ideal binocular sky with plenty of objects to be seen.  Near the southern horizon is the asterism called the Tea Pot. It’s part of the constellation Sagittarius.  Off the spout of the Tea Pot is the centre of our galaxy wherein lies a Black Hole that is more than a million times the mass of our Sun.  An asterism is a grouping of stars that looks like an everyday object.  Another example would be the Big Dipper in Ursa Major.  Following the band of the Milky way up to the zenith and past the summer triangle, we find Cepheus.  It looks like a child’s drawing of a house.  As we descend to the northern horizon, we encounter the ‘W’ shape of Cassiopeia and then the double cluster of stars at the tip of the arrow of Perseus.  Definitely a spectacular binocular view.

July 3: Earth is at its most distant orbital point (aphelion) from the Sun – 94.5 million miles (151,000 kilometers).  I always get a kick out of the fact that at mid-summer we are as far from the Sun as we ever get.  At mid-winter, we are closest (perihelion).
July 6:  The Moon is at apogee – 252,230 miles (403,568 kilometers).  The Moon is 3 degrees north of Saturn around 11 pm.
July 9:  July’s Full Moon is called the Full Buck Moon.  The antlers of deer bucks are heading for full growth.  Another name is the Full Thunder Moon due to the frequent thunderstorms in July – we’ve had our share.  I prefer calling this Full Moon the Full Maggie Moon – my girl dog pal Maggie heads for the bathroom to hide in the tub.  Her weather forecasts are incredibly accurate!
July 20:  The crescent Moon passes just south of Venus around 7 pm – day time observer challenge.  Venus will be obvious in the east before sunrise.
July 21:  The Moon is at perigee -224,462 miles (359,139 kilometers).
July 28:  The Moon is 3 degrees north of Jupiter around 4 pm.  See if you can find Jupiter below it.  Consider this another day time observing challenge.  Binoculars are a definite help.
July 30:  The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower peaks.  Its radiant is in Aquarius which is low above the southern horizon.  The Moon sets before midnight on the 30th so good meteor observing should be had by all.  Meteors from this shower will be observable from early July through August.  There is some overlap with the Perseid meteor shower that peaks in mid-August.

.Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky.  It contains star charts and is packed with information.  It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications.  A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.  

Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.  

Clear Skies! Fred.

I had a fellow email me last month asking if a modest size drawing or picture of the night sky for the month of the column could be included to help find the constellations and objects I point out in the column.  I’ll see what I can do.  The column has limited space and an illustration would eat up some of the limited territory that is set aside for me.  I suppose I could tighten things up a little bit.  I would love to go out and take a picture of the night sky, just before the start of that month and in time for the column and use it to help you get your bearings.  I could also make a drawing for that month if it’s clearer than a photo when printed on newsprint.  In the meantime, if you contact me, I will send you what is called a ‘planisphere’.  The one I send you won’t have many bells and whistles but it will allow you to rotate a chart of the sky to the date and time you are observing; essentially a star and constellation finder.  Let me know and I’ll see what my editor says.

Around 10 pm in early June and earlier as the month progresses, the Summer Triangle rises up from the north-eastern horizon.  It is composed of the bright stars Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, Vega (especially bright!) in Lyra and Altair in Aquila.  Cygnus is a great cruciform shape and Deneb is situated at its tail.  Starting from there, you will find Lyra to its right and Aquila below it.

Summer is essentially here and bug season is upon us!  Cover up when you go out but be careful with the bug spray.  Most, especially those with DEET, can damage your equipment.  The materials in binoculars and telescopes can run, distort and deform if you get the spray fluid on them.

June 1st: first quarter Moon.
June 2nd: Venus rises about 2 hours before sunup and is around 10 degrees high an hour or so later.  As the month moves on, it rises about 2 ½ hours before sunrise to about 15 degrees above the horizon.
June 4th: Comet Johnson passes to the east of Arcturus in the constellation Bootes.  Remember the rhyme: ‘Follow the arc of the Big Dipper to Arcturus and speed on to Spica’.  Spica is in Virgo and that is the direction Comet Johnson is headed later in the month.  There are 2 other comets in the sky but to find them requires a more than modest telescope.
June 3rd: The Moon passes just north of Jupiter.
June 8th: The Moon is at Apogee, it’s farthest point from the Earth this month – 252,526 miles or 404,041 kilometers.
June 9th: Full Moon.  This month it is called the Full Strawberry Moon.  Who can turn down a big helping of strawberry shortcake?  It would be berry, berry hard to understand!  Watch for Saturn.  The Moon passes about 3 degrees north of Saturn at 9 pm.
June 15th: Saturn is at opposition in the southeast.  It is at its closest to Earth and at its brightest.  The rings are open wider than they’ve been since 2003 and tilted at 27 degrees.  Spectacular!
June 17th: Last quarter Moon.
June 20th: Venus is only 2 degrees north of Venus around 5 pm.  This is a chance to find and see Venus in daylight.
June 21st: Summer Solstice happens at 12:24 am EDT.  Welcome to summer!
June 23rd: The Moon is at perigee, its closest to Earth this month.   That distance is 222,412 miles or 355,859 kilometers.  New Moon occurs.
June 30th: First quarter Moon.
Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky.  It contains star charts and is packed with information.  It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications.  A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.  

Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.  

Clear Skies! Fred

It’s a quiet evening with a few clouds in the sky and annoying clouds of blackflies when the breeze fades every few moments or so.

And then  . . .

“Jupiter!” shouts amateur astronomer Guy Nason, pointing to the southern sky.

As if by magic, the clouds part, the bugs are gone and four fancy telescopes start whirring into action.

Within minutes, there are images of our solar system’s largest planet, complete with all four Galilean moons available for all who want to see.

It’s relatively rare to catch Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto in the same frame as it’s seems there is always one or more behind the gas giant when you get a chance to look at it through a decent telescope. (By the way, Callisto was the one at the far edge of the frame by itself.) Although none of Jupiter’s other 63 moons were visible, two distinct cloud bands were and later on in the evening, the Great Red Spot put in an appearance traversing the disk.

“It’s (Jupiter) the jewel of the sky,” said Nason. “We’re so lucky is well-placed in the sky for the next few weeks.”

Stargazers also got a decent view of Messier-13, the globular star cluster in the constellation Hercules discovered in 1714 by Edmond Halley. Also visible were Messier-64, the Black Eye Galaxy and Messier-65, one of the Leo Triplet galaxies, in the same frame.

It’s difficult to say just how many observers visited this site over the course of the night but at its peak there were at least 20 people on the pad, including a couple of young families.

“I’m counting 30-40 in my report,” joked Coun. John Inglis, who was representing Council at the season opening. “I’m not particularly interested in astronomy but I am impressed by the equipment here.”

One of the great things about the star pad is the presence of volunteers like Nason, Verona’s Tim Trentadue and astronomer-in-residence Gary Coleman, all of whom bring good gear with them to let others experience the night sky.

“I enjoy sharing the night sky with people,” said Coleman.

“And remind (Mayor) Ron Higgins that he promised to paint north-south lines on the pad for us,” said Nason.

There are five more planned events at the pad this summer including:

• June 3: Gibbous moon near Jupiter. Moon shadows on Jupiter around 10:22 p.m. and lunar mountains and craters up close
• July 22: Summer constellations, Jupiter, Saturn and summer Milky Way
• August 12: Perseid meteor shower, despite the moonlight, a meteor per minute could be visible. Also the summer Milky Way
• September 10: Last chance to see Saturn, its rings and moons this year. Spotting Uranus with the naked eye a distinct possibility
• October 14: The autumn sky and a second chance to see Uranus unaided. Our nearest major galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, is well-placed.

Also a summer campout is potentially in the works.

Where oh where are Spirit and Opportunity?  These 2 Mars rovers landed successfully on Mars in 2004.  In 2009, poor Spirit rover succumbed when one of its 6 wheels went lame.  It could travel and move at a much-reduced rate by going backwards but soon it got stuck, and in March 2010 it had to be abandoned.  Incredibly, Opportunity rover is still working very well thank you and still collecting very useful scientific data about Mars.  Just recently it left its data collecting position on the rim of a crater named Tribulation after a 90 day stay.  It is now heading towards a nearby feature called Perseverance Valley.  Spirit lasted 6 years and so far, Opportunity has been constantly collecting valuable data about Mars for 13 years.  Pretty good for a pair of rovers whose mission back then would have been called a spectacular success if they had lasted the 90 days that was their predicted lifetime!  The work of both rovers has been priceless!

Curiosity Rover, a next generation of rover that landed on Mars in 2012, is still going strong.  It has some tire damage from the terrain it has been traveling on but that has slowed it down very little.  It recently sent back to Earth a photo that got published in all the newspapers and went viral on social media!  The object in the photo appears to be a 3-foot-high remnant of a petrified tree.  Of course, it could be just a tall rock.  Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity have established that free running water existed on the surface of Mars a long time ago, roughly in the first billion and a half years of its existence.  Water is necessary for life as we know it.  It is unlikely that water ran free on Mars for a long enough time period for there to have evolved anything more advanced than single celled life forms.  A tree is a very sophisticated life form that would have taken a lot longer than a billion years to evolve.  It took several billion years for trees to evolve and diversify in the much friendlier conditions of Earth.  My resident expert, my wife, says it’s a rock!  I’m not about to argue.

Planets in view during May
May is a pretty good month for planets.  Mars will be swallowed by evening twilight soon but there’s Jupiter as one of several planets prominent in the evening sky to the south east to take its place.  It shows itself about an hour after sunset and it is still above the western horizon at sunrise.  It’s a beautiful sight with its 4 largest moons strung out around it.  They are especially viewable with binoculars.  Saturn comes up near midnight in early May and is high in the south by early morning.  It will reach opposition in mid-June and be very noticeable.  It will be tilted ideally this summer so that a view of the rings through a modest telescope will show details of its ring structure besides being spectacular!  Binoculars provide a good view especially since it will be sitting in a part of the sky near the centre of our Milky Way galaxy.  There is an abundance of nebulae, star clusters and galaxies to also see through the binoculars.  A modest telescope would be ideal for finding some of Saturn’s moons.  Saturn’s largest moon Titan will be north of Saturn on May 7th and13th and to the south on May 15th and 31st.  Venus rises about 2 hours before the Sun in May and although it’s not quite as bright as it was in April, it is still dazzling bright.  It is close to Earth and as it moves away, watch for changes in its appearance.  Use a telescope to see it go from roughly a ¼ illuminated at the start of May to about ½ illuminated by the end of the month.

May 4: 1st quarter Moon.
May 6: Eta Aquariid meteor shower.  It is best a few hours before sunrise after the gibbous Moon has set.
May 10: Full Moon.  It is called the Full Flower Moon and sure enough, my tulips are coming up although our rock garden looks like the surface of the Moon – sterile so far.
May13: Moon passes 3 degrees north of Saturn around 7pm.
May 18: Last ¼ Moon.
May 22: Moon passes 2 degrees south of Venus around 9 am.  Here’s an opportunity to more easily find Venus during the daylight.  Finding Venus during daytime is a feather in any amateurs cap.
May 25: New Moon.
… and comets

There are 2 viewable comets in the sky and one dim difficult one.  
Comet 41P: It can be found near Vega in the constellation Lyra around May 4th.  As the month progresses, it travels south in a sort if straight line down the east side of Hercules.
Comet Johnson: It is north of Bootes in early May and travels down the east side of Bootes.
Comet PANSTARRS: It is low in the east just before sunrise and close to Venus.  Difficult and dimmer than the other 2. Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky.  It contains star charts and is packed with information.  It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications.  A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.  

Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.  

Clear Skies! Fred

Did you know that the Earth is not a perfect sphere?  There’s a special area of study in mathematics that involves measurements of Earth.  It is called ‘geodesty’.  It got its start in the 17th century when improvements in the field of astronomy made astronomical measurements more accurate.  A need for precise mathematical descriptions became necessary.  Earth can be described as a flattened sphere or more mathematically, as an oblate spheroid.  This is a sphere that is wider at its horizontal axis than it is at the vertical axis.  Due to the Earth’s rotational velocity (1674.4 Km/h), our planet is flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator.  Our planet’s diameter between the poles is about 12,713 Km and at the equator roughly 12,756 Km, a difference of 43 Km.  Other planets in the Solar system exhibit similar differences that depend on planet size and speed of rotation.  Jupiter and Saturn, gas giants, are excellent examples.  Our Sun and the stars in the sky are measurably broad in the beam as well.

I described Venus last month as being an ‘evening’ and a ‘morning’ star.  This month we have a visual example of that transition from evening to morning.  In early March, Venus is bright in the west from sunset to about 8:30 pm when it disappears below the horizon.  As the month progresses Venus’s orbit carries it closer to Earth and the size of its disk increases but its crescent, that part of Venus lit by the Sun, decreases.  A good set of binoculars should allow you to actually see it as a crescent not as the star like point of light that your eyes observe.  March 25th marks inferior conjunction where it sits between the Sun and Earth and is at its closest.  No light will be reflected our way.  Venus will be past conjunction by the end of the month and will become visible as a ‘morning’ star just before dawn.  Its crescent will now be on the opposite side of its disk and will grow larger as it retreats away from us.

Jupiter rises late in the evening (around 9 pm) in early March and is a marvelous sight throughout the night.  It will be in opposition in early April and will appear huge and beautiful.  Saturn and Venus share the sky with Jupiter in the early morning by the end of the month.  Mars is visible in the west all through March in the early evening.

Watch for the pyramid shape of the zodiacal light in the west at twilight.  It will fade by late March.  Sunlight reflecting off of debris and dust along the ecliptic in the inner Solar system creates this phenomenon.  It’s quite something to see.

There’s a comet out there!  It’s called Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Krusak.  It should be best towards the end of March.  Use binoculars for the best view.  If you are at a dark site, it might even be visible by naked eye.  This comet comes around every 5.4 years and its visibility varies greatly each time.  Its name gives credit to 3 astronomers.  American Horace Tuttle discovered it in 1858.  Frenchman Michel Giacobini rediscovered it in 1907 and Slovakian Lubox Krusak found it in 1951.  It was only noticed 3 times over the course of a century!  But have heart!  This time it has an especially close path by Earth.  Hopefully it might even sputter more gas and debris to improve its visibility.  It will be flying just under the bowl of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) near the end of March.  On March 27th, it will be just below the fairly bright star Dubhe in the Big Dipper.

Highlights for March.
March 10th:  Regulus is just north of the Moon about 6 pm.
March 12th:  Full Moon.  So many names this month:
Full Worm Moon.  The warming ground marks the appearance of worms.  Not likely to crawl around here for a while!
Full Crow Moon.  I have noticed that the crows are getting a tad restless.  Maybe being -20 degrees C tonight will shut them up!
Full Crust Moon.  Our tropical late February and sudden return of Winter has made life a bit crusty.
Full Sap Moon.  Definitely an early run this year.  Hope weather returns to normal.
March 18th:  The Moon is at apogee, farthest from the Earth in its orbit - 402,300 Km.
March 20th:  Saturn passes 3 degrees south of the Moon around 6 am.  Last quarter Moon around Noon.  The Vernal Equinox occurs at 6:29 am.
March 25th:  Venus is at inferior conjunction.
March 27th:  New Moon.
March 30th:  Moon at perigee, closest to Earth – 361,741 Km

Watch for that comet!
Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky.  It contains star charts and is packed with information.  It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications.  A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.  
Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.  

Clear Skies! Fred

What’s up there indeed?  In this column, I’m going to talk about, um… nothing.  Did that catch your attention?  There are vast spaces between the stars and galaxies that appear to be completely empty, seemingly filled with nothing!  Even our Solar system looks to be mostly empty space out past the Sun.  It contains only a miniscule amount of material.  When compared to the Sun, the planets and asteroids and meteors take up only a extremely tiny fraction of the space out there.  Empty space reigns supreme… or does it?

In the 18th and 19th century light was considered a wave motion and this theory caused a great debate within the scientific and religious communities about what made up space.  One side, initially the majority, favoured some sort of stuff or a medium since they reasoned that air waves needed air to travel and so, light needed something too.  This medium was called ether or aether.  Any other ideas, such as space was a vacuum, were considered absurd.  Einstein’s first theory of relativity showed that light was quite content to travel through a vacuum and the ether theory was dumped.  Space was declared to be an empty vacuum.  That changed when spectroscopy became an accepted method of examining the wavelengths of light.  It showed that intervening material, especially hydrogen, produced absorption lines.  On average, one atom could be found in each cubic centimeter of space.  The quality of a vacuum depends on where you are situated in outer space.  Near a star, the Sun for example, there is a solar wind where a constant stream of atoms bumps up the quantity of atoms per cubic centimeter by a factor of about 5 or 6.  The presence of a solar wind was confirmed by measurements taken from the early days of satellites.  You can sort of see the presence of the solar wind when you observe the tail of a comet being pushed away from the comet by the Sun.  Cosmic rays and neutrinos were soon added to the mix.  Now throw in magnetic and electrical fields and gravity waves and space is starting to get crowded.  In the 1930’s a type of energy called “vacuum energy” was first proposed.  Dutch physicist Hendrick Casimir showed by experiment that 2 metal plates positioned very close together became very strongly attached.  This was explained by the presence of “vacuum energy” outside the plates pushing them together. This energy arises from unimaginable numbers of particles and anti-particles briefly coming into existence and quickly vanishing.  The entire universe boils with a vast quantity of energy.  This may be the “dark energy” that scientists speculate is causing the universe to expand.  So much for ‘empty’ space!  I could describe much more to you about space and in greater detail but I’m afraid I’m rapidly filling up my ‘space’ for this column.  I will close this discussion of what’s out there with a summary of what scientists have discovered about the make-up of space.  It’s a truly astounding and fascinating description!  To start with, if we could see with our eyes to the ends of the universe and added up all the stars and galaxies and Black holes and planets up there, that would be ‘normal matter’.  It makes up only 4.9% of the universe.  Not much, eh?  Dark matter, which scientists have mapped and confirmed exists, makes up 26.8%.  They have little idea of what it is, except that it has gravity and shapes the formation of galaxies and the structure of the universe.  Finally, we have Dark energy.  It provides the final 68.3% of the 3 ingredients that make up the recipe for our cosmos.  In essence, all but 4.9% of the universe is a mystery – a land unknown and certainly not empty.

I have recently received several emails asking about a ‘bright star’ that can be seen in the west.  This question often comes up.  It is the planet Venus.  It will reach maximum brightness, magnitude -4.8, on the night of February 16/17.  Venus is the 2nd planet in the solar system and suffers from a run-away greenhouse effect.  It has a temperature of 239 degrees C and an atmospheric pressure 90 times that of Earth at its surface.  Add some sulfuric rain and it’s hardly a place for a pleasant stroll.  It is known as the evening ‘star’ and also as the morning ‘star’.  Why?  Well, Venus orbits a bit more than 3 times for every 2 orbits of the Earth.  Venus can therefore be seen at different angles to the Sun.  Thus, it presents itself as an evening star for 9 ½ months, disappears behind the Sun and when it appears again, it becomes a morning star for 9 ½ months.

Have a look at Mars this month.  It can be found in the constellation Pisces.  If it weren’t for Venus, it would be the brightest object in that area.

Here are a few highlights for February.

Feb. 3:   Quarter Moon.
Feb. 6:   Earth at perigee – 366,675 Km.
Feb. 10:
• Full Moon.  This is the Full Snow Moon.  Usually the heaviest snowfall is in February (except for Winterlude when it usually rains on the canal – a bitter past experience). The snow makes hunting difficult so first nations called it the Full Hunger Moon.
• A Penumbral Lunar Eclipse occurs around 7:30 pm.  The Moon will pass through the outer shadow of Earth (the penumbra) and not all of the Sun’s light will be blocked.  This type of eclipse is difficult to notice but if you look closely, you see that the Moon becomes darker.  Watch carefully.
Feb. 14:  Watch for the Zodiacal light in the west after twilight during the last 2 weeks of February.
Feb. 15:  The Moon passes 3 degrees north of Jupiter about 10 am.  It might be bright enough to see.  Around the 14th, Mars is close to Uranus and should appear within a 7X50 binocular field.
Feb. 17:  Venus is at brightest high in the west.
Feb. 18:  Last quarter Moon.  Moon at apogee – 402,029 Km.
Feb. 20:  The Moon passes 4 degrees north of Saturn.
Feb. 26:  New Moon at 9:58 am.  See if you can find it.
Feb. 27:  Mars passes 2/3 degree north of Uranus.  Try to see Uranus through your binoculars or a low power eyepiece on your telescope.  From the 25th to the 27th they will be quite close.
Feb. 28 :  The Moon passes 10 degrees south of Venus around 3 pm.  Venus is so bright, it should stand out even though it is still daylight.

Keep looking up!

“The Beginners Observing Guide” by Leo Enright is an invaluable companion for adventures in the night sky.  It contains star charts and is packed with information.  It can be purchased at the Sharbot Lake pharmacy or it can be ordered from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada at www.rasc.ca/publications.  A subscription to our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine “SkyNews”, with its centerfold sky chart, can be ordered at the RASC site as well.  
Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to ask questions or report any unusual sights in the night sky.  
Clear Skies! Fred