03/05/2018 – Ephemeris – Spring is coming: Leo is rising

Ephemeris for Monday, March 5th. The Sun will rise at 7:13. It’ll be up for 11 hours and 22 minutes, setting at 6:35. The Moon, half way from full to last quarter, will rise at 10:53 this evening.

The constellation Leo the lion is now rising in the east at 9 pm. It’s below and left of the Big Dipper higher up in the east-northeast. Leo is marked by two sets of easily recognizable stars. The front of him is a backward question mark of stars, also known as the Sickle that mark his head and mane, along with the front part of his body. Regulus is the star at the bottom of that backwards question mark. It’s the Little King Star. The hind end of him is a triangle of stars ending with another bright star, but not as bright as Regulus. It’s Denebola which means Lion’s tail. It is thought when the Sun was in this constellation long ago that the lions were driven by the heat to quench their thirst in the Nile river. Ancients physicians thought medicines were poison when the Sun was here also.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The constellation Leo animation. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

Algieba is a binary star, which should be able to be split with any good telescope.  The magnitude 2.4 and 3.6 components are separated by 4.6 arc seconds.  Binary stars are one type of object that benefit from using high power to resolve.  The stars are very close in temperature, so each appears a yellow-orange color offering no color contrast.