March 19/20 - Vernal Equinox

Vernal Equinox - On March 20 at 23:21 UTC, the Sun will be directly over the Earth's equator. This is the point in time when we officially enter "Spring" in the Northern Hemisphere.

Brightest Moon - On Saturday 3/19, we will have the brightest and biggest Full Moon in 20 years! It will occur just 1 hour from perigee, when the Moon is at its closest orbital point to Earth.

March 11 - Star Flicker

Star Flicker - Stars flicker because we see them through the distortion of winter's turbulent atmosphere. Brighter stars will appear to flicker more on darker nights.

March 7 - Lovely Fir

Lovely Fir - The Pacific Silver Fir (Abies amabilis), commonly referred to as the Lovely Fir, is native to the Pacific Northwest of North America. It grows at altitudes of sea level to 1,500 m in the north range (Alaska) to 2,300 m in the south of the range, always in temperate rain forest with relatively high precipitation and cool, humid summers.

Pacific Silver Firs can carry the same needles for up to 53 years. They have unique cones that are dark purple in color before maturity, and then turn to a silvery blue color with age.

Jupiter/Moon - These two celestial bodies appear together at sunset on Monday, March 7th.

(photo courtesy of NASA images)