I find
myself looking skyward at night a lot this month; the reason is that this is a
remarkable month for planet sightings according to the different astronomy websites I’ve come across. Check out the following website for good information
about what’s happening in the sky above us during March http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury. It helps that March has been a
month of some wonderfully sunny clear days and equally clear crisp nights, so
that when I look up I can in fact see the planets, stars and the moon, not
hidden by clouds or fog.
I’ve never been
very good at identifying the different stellar constellations, except for the
Big and Little Dippers, the common names for Ursa Major and Ursa Minor if I
understand the information I’ve read correctly. As a child, I remember looking up at the
ceiling of Grand Central Station in New York City and being pleasantly surprised by what I saw
there—a zodiac mural painted on the green ceiling, which has recently been
restored. For more information about it, check out the following site: http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2010/nov/08/stars-shine-grand-central-terminal-again/. My parents tried to explain some
of this to us, but my siblings and I were not of an age where we could really
understand it. But it was fun to look at.
I’ve been
trying to photograph the night sky a lot this month, without much success until
tonight. I am posting the photo I was happiest with. You can see the crescent
moon, and closest to it on the left is Jupiter; Venus shines brightly above the
both of them. Enjoy!
