Stars over Sisters

Between the constellations of Auriga, Gemini and Ursa Major lies a region of the celestial sphere that is completely devoid of bright stars.

Many of the dim stars here were listed by Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy as lying among what he termed the "unformed" stars outside Ursa Major.

Later seventeenth-century Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius laid claim to this "no-man's land" and established a new constellation he called Lynx.

It was so named because its stars are so faint that it would take someone with eyes as keen as a lynx to see it.

The name may also refer to Lynceus, who, in Greek mythology, had the best eyesight in the world and could even see objects underground.

For those who wish to try to find the constellation, it is nearly overhead in the early evenings during March.

Although Alsciaukat (also known as 31 Lyncis) is only the fourth brightest star in Lynx, it is the only one with a proper name. It is an orange giant star, about twice as massive as the sun but is a relatively young 1.4 billion years old. It lies at a distance of about 390 light-years.

The star 6 Lyncis is a subgiant that is some 15 times brighter than the sun. In July 2008 a planet with at least 2.4 Jupiter masses was discovered orbiting the star, completing one circuit every 899 days.

There are two deep-sky objects in Lynx worthy of mention. The first is globular cluster NGC 2419, the Intergalactic Wanderer. What is so special about this object is its distance-almost 300,000 light-years from the center of our galaxy. That's nearly twice as far away as the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the Milky Way's two satellite galaxies. The Intergalactic Wanderer is the most distant globular cluster that can be seen in a medium-sized telescope.

Lynx's finest galaxy, NGC 2683, was discovered by William Herschel on February 5, 1788. Because the galaxy is seen almost edge-on, making it appear reminiscent of a classic science fiction spaceship, it has been dubbed the UFO galaxy by the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory. This vast city of stars is located at a distance of between 16 and 25 million light-years.

The vernal equinox arrives on March 20, signaling the start of spring for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. At 3:45 p.m. PDT the sun will cross the celestial equator going from south to north, which will begin making the hours of daylight exceed those of night, at least until June 21.

The new moon this month coincides with the vernal equinox on March 20. It also happens to be a supermoon because it turns new only 14 hours after having reached perigee-the closest distance to the earth. Some parts of the world will see a total solar eclipse, as the new moon passes in front of the sun. Unfortunately, this event won't be visible anywhere in the United States. To complete the lunar cycle, the full moon will occur on March 5, last quarter on March 13, and first quarter on March 27.

At the beginning of March, Venus and Mars are seen relatively close together in the west after sunset. But as the month progresses, Mars falls toward the sun while Venus pulls farther away.

Rising about two and a half hours before the sun sets in early March, Jupiter is already well up in the eastern sky by nightfall and well placed for observing with a telescope. During the early hours of the morning, Saturn rises in the southeast, settling in the southern sky by sunrise.