• Menemsha at dusk.
  • Timothy Johnson

Crescent Moon

A thin crescent moon rises early in the morning tomorrow. The moon is in the zodiacal constellation Aquarius, a constellation we normally associate with autumn and late summer. It appears Sunday and Monday mornings, but even closer to the eastern horizon.

Evening Stars

So much has changed in our evening sky. With the advance of the spring season, the constellations we’ve been familiar with in March have shifted. Orion, the hunter, the constellation we associate with the bitter cold nights of winter, is now hanging in the southwestern sky. Above and to the right of Orion there is the constellation Taurus with the bright planet Jupiter.

In the east, there is constellation Bootes, the shepherd, with its bright star Arcturus shining like a distant beacon. The Big Dipper, also more formally known as Ursa Major, is now overhead by 10 p.m.

Leo, the lion, is just south of the Big Dipper and truly over our heads. The brightest star in Leo is Regulus. Deep sky astronomers love to look at this mythological beast for it offers a window out of our Milky Way.

The head of Leo is an assembly of stars in the shape of a reversed question mark. Regulus is the dot under the question mark. To the left of Leo, in an area between Leo and the constellation Virgo, there is an expanse of distant galaxies so numerous as to be uncountable.
  

Sunrise and Sunset
Day Sunrise Sunset
Fri., April 5 6:18 7:10
Sat., April 6 6:16 7:12
Sun., April 7 6:15 7:13
Mon., April 8 6:13 7:14
Tues., April 9 6:11 7:15
Wed., April 10 6:10 7:16
Thurs., April 11 6:08 7:17
Fri., April 12 6:07 7:18
Temperatures and Precipitations
Day Max (Fº) Min (Fº) Inches
March 29 50 38 0.00
March 30 59 40 0.00
March 31 55 30 0.00
April 1 55 43 0.24
April 2 54 30 0.07
April 3 44 29 0.00
April 4 46 30 0.00

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 46º F.

 

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