We in the Southern California deserts have had some pretty bad weather over the past month or so. Clouds, rain and wind have all kept me indoors.
Sure, the rain is good for our upcoming desert wildflower season, but I want to see stars!
Thankfully, the incoming storms have subsided, but it’s now turned cold. Well, not “real” cold like those in other parts of the world must endure, but for us desert dwellers it feels quite wintery.
And, every year at this time, I find myself looking for evidence that spring is on its way.
When I was a child, I would brush the snow back from my mother’s garden to search for signs of green growth. Today, I look toward the skies.
Since the Earth orbits the sun annually, our night sky changes as we look outward in different directions from month to month.
During winter, our early evening sky is graced by the dazzling stars of Orion and company. By springtime, however, these stars will have drifted westward as new stars appear in the east.
This is the springtime sky and, whenever I spot it after dark, I feel the same excitement I did in my mother’s garden when the first sprouts appeared under the snow.
We’re at that time now, folks, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!
After dark, go outdoors and look toward the east and northeast. There you’ll find the celestial harbingers of spring that I seek every year: the Big Dipper and Leo.
If you’ve been wondering where the Dipper has been, you’re not alone.
Many early evening stargazers aren’t aware that, in midnorthern latitudes, we don’t see it during winter since it lies below the horizon. But now it’s rising in the northeast, and it shines quite prominently after dark.
Highest in the sky you’ll see four stars that form a rectangular bowl, and beneath it hang three stars that trace its bent handle.
The two bowl stars that lie farthest from the handle serve as pointer stars. Follow them to the left and they’ll point toward Polaris, the North Star. Follow them to the right, however, and they’ll take you directly to Leo, the lion.
Leo is one of the few constellations that, with some imagination, can be pictured as a lion crouching in a regal pose reminiscent of the enigmatic Egyptian sphinx.
The brightest star there is Regulus, which shines below the lion’s majestic head and mane, outlined by a large backward question mark.
The star’s very name, “Regulus,” comes from the Latin word “Rex” meaning “king,” and not surprisingly, this star was revered throughout antiquity as a “royal” star.
If you have trouble tracing this animal among the stars, don’t worry. Just reverse it and you might see not the mighty king of the jungle, but a mouse!
Quite frankly, I think the figure of a mouse is much easier to trace. Here, the star Denebola forms the tip of the mouse’s nose, and the backward question mark now traces its long, curving tail.
Any way you look at it, however, mouse or lion, nothing roars springtime louder than the first appearance of Leo!