Lions, lambs and astronomy

Well, let's see, March came in like a lion (remember the snow?), now will it go out like a lamb?

That old weather saying has a foundation in astronomy. On March 1 of each year Leo, the Lion is just above the eastern horizon, just coming "in" to the celestial picture. Just above the western horizon is Aries, the Ram, who is exiting, or going "out" of the sky for a while.

Anyway, I thought I would throw that in for free.

I want to look a small constellation this time, Coma Berenices. It is making a nice appearance in the eastern sky these early spring evenings and can easily be located.

Looking east at about 8:30 MDT locate our old friend Leo. A line drawn down (east) from Leo's tail star will reach the upper part of Virgo. If you look a little to the left center of that line you will see three bright stars forming a right angle. That is Coma Berenices, or more commonly called, Berenices Hair.

It is a rather non-descript constellation. Its one defining feature is a very nice open, or galactic, star cluster named Melotte 111 by astronomer P.J. Mellotte when he was cataloging star clusters.

In ancient times the cluster was thought of as the tuft of hair in Leo's tail, but around 240 B.C. Egyptian ruler Ptolemy III renamed it Coma Berenices. Seems that when Ptolemy went off to war his wife, Berenices, promised the gods that if he came back safe she would give them her beautiful, long, hair.

Well old Ptolemy did come back all safe and true to her word Berenices cut off her hair and hung it in the temple. But the next morning the hair was missing and none of the priests could offer an explanation.

Ptolemy was on the point of having them all executed when one of them, out of desperation said, "The gods must have taken it and put it in the heavens."

Sure enough, that night the priest went out and called this little group of stars with the glowing cluster the location of the hair. Then all was right with the world.

The cluster can be seen from your favorite dark-sky place in the east any evening rising to a good viewing position by 9pm MDT. The cluster is commonly called the Coma Cluster today. It is a very nice sight in binoculars or a wide-angle telescope eyepiece.

The Coma Cluster is about 288 light years distant, that is twice as far as the Hyades cluster in Taurus, the Bull and is estimated to be about 450 million years old.

As I have mentioned before, the area between Leo and Virgo is the "Realm of the Galaxies." There are hundreds of them there and they can be observed with binoculars or a telescope. Just remember, most of them are in the "faint fuzzy" category.

SKY WATCH: Venus and Mercury make a nice pairing in the western sky about a half-hour after sunset. The sister planets will be together for most of the month but Mercury will start to sink toward the horizon in the last half of April. Venus is the higher, and brighter, of the two. Binoculars may be needed to bring Mercury out of the soup. Remember, NEVER, EVER, look in the direction of the sun with binoculars.

If you are up at 3 a.m. MDT on Saturday, April 3, you can catch the moon above and slightly right of Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius.

NEXT TIME: More astronomical blathering.