2018 Week 9: (February 25-March 3)

We are nearing the end of February and will be a sixth of the way done with 2018.  This year has gone fast.  The weather has been quite poor for astronomy but hopefully we will be in for a good Spring!  There are a few things to catch in the sky this upcoming week as described in the chart below.

Date	Event
February 28	Regulus 0.9°S of Moon
March 1	Atlas V Launch of GOES-S
March 1	Full Moon

During the last hour of the month the bright star in Leo -- Regulus will be in close conjunction with the nearly Full Moon.  A map of this conjunction is shown below.  If you stick the Moon in a less than 1° field of view on your telescope you should be able to see both through your eyepiece.  Leo will be high in the southeast sky by 11:00pm MST.

Regulus/Moon Conjunction

If you would like more information about Leo follow the link below to my previous mapping of the constellation.

http://simonjastronomy.blogspot.com/2017/03/explore-universe-leo.html

The Moon will be Full in the sky the next evening.  During this cycle the Full Moon has moved far enough from perigee and will no longer be supermooning.

During the afternoon of March 1, 2018 the GOES-S weather satellite is due to launch on an Atlas V rocket.  The launch window is between 3:02-5:02pm.  If you have yet to catch a launch this year this one should be fun.

Atlas V

You can catch the launch live from the following webpage.

https://spaceflightnow.com/

There are a few more launches heading up into space this month including a crewed Soyuz heading to the International Space Station on March 21, one day after the Spring equinox.  It is amazing, Spring is almost here.

The weather this week is looking close to seasonal with temperatures straddling the freezing mark.  Hopefully this will give the deck a chance to dry off and allow a decent spot to put the telescope.  Spring is one of my favourite observing seasons as the Sun still goes down early and the weather is not as cold.  The Winter constellations will still be kicking around in the west and we will also be able to see some old favourites rise in the east.  Virgo and Libra will start to come into play around midnight.  This will be great as Jupiter is currently sitting in the scales!  I look forward to having planets in the sky once again.