• Cold night sky over Owen Park.
  • Mark Lovewell

Looking for Spring in the Night Sky

Take a look into the future with the night sky. If you are out around midnight, look overhead at the stars and you’ll find all the spring constellations in view. Even though we are three weeks from the first day of spring, we have spring and almost summer overhead at midnight.

The constellations in that late hour are familiar. The Big Dipper, a favorite, is overhead. The two stars on the edge of the bowl in the dipper point north to the North Star, Polaris. The handle of the dipper points to the east, to Arcturus, a bright orange star. Arcturus is the principal star in the constellation Bootes, the shepherd. Bootes is high in the east.

South of the dipper, there is the zodiacal constellation Leo, the lion. Between Leo and Bootes, there is another spring and summer constellation, Virgo.

The brightest star in Virgo, fairly high in the southern sky, is the distant blue-tinted star called Spica. Spica is so far away that the light you see is at least 260 years old. When you look at Spica, you look back in time, to well before the birth of our young country, the United States.

On Sunday night, near midnight, the moon and planet Saturn rise in the east. The two are low in the southeastern sky and they are in the zodiacal constellation Scorpius, a constellation we associate with the warmth of summer. If you are out to three o’clock, you’ll see the stars of summer.

 

 

Sunrise and Sunset
Day Sunrise Sunset
Fri., March 6 6:09 5:37
Sat., March 7 6:07 5:38
Sun., March 8 7:05 6:39
Mon., March 9 7:04 6:41
Tues., March 10 7:02 6:42
Wed., March 11 7:00 6:43
Thurs., March 12 6:59 6:44
Fri., March 13 6:57 6:45
Temperatures and Precipitation
Day Max (Fº) Min (Fº) Inches
Feb. 27 30 16 *0.05
Feb. 28 31 14 0.0
March 1 31 6 0.00
March 2 34 28 *0.55
March 3 39 18 0.00
March 4 41 28 0.76
March 5 40 32 *0.35

 

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 33º F

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