Event Date: March 14th
Time: 7:30 PM
Brief
As we near the March equinox, it is a reminder that Summer also isn't far from now. With that in mind, the namesake triangle---which I have featured countless times (it seems anyway)--is now well placed in the east. With daylight savings time now in effect, we can spend the next few weeks not having to wake up quite as early to see the large asterism. However, with the Sun rapidly moving north and our earliest Sunrises only about 2 and a half months away, it will eventually mean waking up early enough to see it. Or, for the night owls out there, simply stay up late enough!
The image shows the triangle's center almost directly east. If you forget how to find that, refer back to this entry.
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click on images to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.
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Detailed
Vega already rises before midnight for most mid-northern latitude locations, with Deneb to follow shortly after. Altair follows suit a little two hours after Deneb, depending exactly on one's latitude. For our location at this time shown above, Vega is only a little over an hour pre-transit and about 75º in altitude; that is almost exactly how high the Sun gets at transit on the June solstice. Of course, the Sun's maximum declination is about 15º south of Vega's maximum (nearly zenith), so it may be a strange comparison. In any case, if you can still see Vega long enough during twilight, being almost exactly magnitude 0, it can be seen transiting. Get a telescope on it if you want to view it long enough to see this. In about another month, the star will have risen early enough to transit before the middle of civil twilight, which is about the time that most of the brightest stars become impossible to see with the eye.
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