March skies darken to reveal Orion the Hunter standing above the southern horizon.  He is flanked by two bright objects.  Behind him, to the left and below, is Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky.  Sirius is bright because it is about twice as massive as our sun, about 70 percent larger in diameter, hotter, and more than 20 times more luminous, but also because it is, as stars go, a relatively close neighbor.  We are just now seeing the light the star emitted in the summer of 1994.

I like to imagine Sirius as the shiny dog tag on the collar of Canis Major, Orion's faithful hunting companion.  (To my knowledge, there are no celestial animals named "Rex" or "Bowser.")  Sirius is in line with the three stars of Orion's belt.  Follow Orion's belt in the other direction, up and to the right, to three other interesting objects.  The first is a moderately bright orange star called Aldebaran shining from the face of Taurus the Bull.  Just beyond Aldebaran is the brilliant silvery light of the planet Jupiter and just beyond Jupiter is the blue-white cluster of stars called the Pleiades, sometimes pictured as a swarm of flies or a family of birds resting on the Bull's shoulders.  Star colors tend to be very subtle but are easier to discern when three objects are close enough to make comparison easy.

Later in the evening, roughly between 10:30 and 11:30, Leo the Lion is high in the south.  Regulus is the bright star on Leo's chest and the curve of stars above it, variously described as a sickle, or backwards question mark, represents his head and mane.  About this time a tan or pale yellow object will be rising in the east-southeast.  It's an object unremarkable to the unaided eye, except for its decades-long trek through the zodiac.  Through a telescope, however, Saturn becomes the amazing Ringed Planet, one of the many beautiful sights in the night sky.


THE COMET COMETH:  After making a spectacular appearance in the skies of the Southern Hemisphere, Comet PanSTARRS  is looping around the sun to visit northern skies and may be visible just above the western horizon for the next few weeks.  Look for it in bright twilight just after sunset.  On March 12, it might be visible to the left of a very thin crescent moon.  Alan MacRobert's guide to PanSTARRS is on the Sky & Telescope website at <www.skyandtelescope.com/skytel/beyondthepage/185665152.html>.

SPRING FORWARD:  Dismal Darkness Days end and Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday the 10th.

THE EQUINOX AT LAST:  Spring arrives in the Northern Hemisphere and fall comes to Down Under at 7:02 am (EDT) on March 20.  Mud Season will begin last week and last the customary six months.

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