2021 Week 11: (March 14-March 20)

The weather is warming up and the spring constellations are starting to creep into the late evening sky. I had the opportunity to see Leo crawl in from the southeast toward the south last night. I hope to be able to get outside of the city's light pollution to catch some of the great galaxies the lion sits on.

Leo

This upcoming Saturday, on the 20th, will be the Spring Equinox and the Sun's disk will be, once again, above the northern hemisphere. The days will be longer than the nights so astronomers will have to stay up later each night to enjoy the same dark skies as they had during the winter. On the equinox true night, where the Sun is more than 18° below the horizon will begin at about 9:45pm and last until 5:45am. This is true for Calgary and our friends who hang around the 51° line of latitude.

As the Sun goes down on the evening of March 16 take the opportunity to put it in binoculars. You may see Uranus within the same binocular field just above the crescent lunar neighbour. Three nights later you will see our Moon pair up with Mars within the same binocular field. Poor Mars though has dimmed to magnitude 1.2 and is a measly 5.8 arcseconds in diameter. This pales in comparison to the last opposition in October when it was more than 20 arcseconds in diameter and shined brighter than magnitude -2.5.

This Thursday do not miss this free online presentation on uncovering the origin of highest-energy cosmic rays. Everyone can sign up! Use the link below and we hope to see you there!

Uncovering the Origin of Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays

Also, if you have any youth members who are interested in learning more about astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada hosts classes in partnership with the Calgary Public Library. This classes are an hour long and take place every Saturday morning. If you'd like to search out some of the upcoming classes use the link below.

https://calgarylibrary.ca/events-and-programs/programs?query=rasc