final entry: "pre-equinox" special!

Event Date: March 20th

Time: last second of year (3:58.13 AM) PDT.

   Over the last year, since the Sun reached ecliptic longitude 0º, I have had the opportunity to inform, educate, and perhaps even entertain(?) readers from around the world.  I have noticed this, based on the wide variety of countries and territories showing up on my audience/stats page, just to clarify! Hopefully many of them have found convenient time to read as well as view the page.

   In recent years, I have come to the belief to not start something that I cannot finish.  When starting to put my astronomy journal entries onto blog form, I knew that it would be a big commitment to make it work on a daily basis.  As a result of other interests and a very busy work schedule taking up multiple hours, the last few months have been a struggle to keep up with the blog, and the upcoming months look to be even more difficult, without falling behind.  With that said, the last two days of summarizing the planets' positions in the sky with their celestial paths, will be my final entries, having rounded out the astronomical new year by date.  Today, as the Sun crosses ecliptic longitude 0º again, I am posting an image from the final second before that happens, shown below.  The ecliptic-related lines are in bold green, while I kept the still-important celestial-related lines thinner and dimmer.  Once again, this is a fitting image, as the Sun is less than 1/1000 of an arc-minute from 0º ecliptic longitude.  As a reminder, although the celestial meridian (0h) seems to intersect at the exact same spot and the Sun seems to be exactly bisected by it, the two don't exactly intersect, and the Sun passes 0h a little more than 6 minutes earlier.

click on image to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.

   Overall, thanks for joining me on this astronomical journey between the two March 20ths during 2012 and 2013.  I have tried to keep the variety alive by including star characteristics, constellations, deep sky info, and of course, our solar system "family" of the Moon, Sun, planets, and their satellites.

   Although I don't plan to continue to blog daily or even somewhat regularly for an indefinite period, I won't close any doors, and will keep the blog online for anyone who wants to read entries during the past year's worth of dates.  There is definitely some variety, so please feel welcome to take a look back and do so.  In the meantime, I will continue to use some of the time not blogging to use the software to find extra "oddball" stats and alignments in our solar system, galaxy and universe.  If by chance those compulsions to share my findings churn inside of me, I know that I have my blogpage to share them with!

In the meantime, while not blogging, I will be busy with other life doing and findings as well.  Find me on Facebook and Twitter (@DavidLikuski).  Thanks again, for reading and hopefully learning a thing or more, about the abstracts, characteristics, and occasional trivial facts about what we see in our sky!