Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Monday, March 28th.  The sun will rise at 7:31.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 8:04.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 5:05 tomorrow morning.

Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation of Leo the lion.  Leo is high in the southeast at 10 p.m.  It can be found by imagining a leak in the bottom of the Big Dipper.  The water would fall on Leo’s back.  Regulus is the star lower right corner of the constellation.  Alluding to the lion’s status in the animal kingdom, Regulus is the little king star.  It is dead last in order of brightness of the 21 first magnitude stars, 1/13th the brightness of Sirius the brightest star low in the southwest at the same time.  To the Babylonians it was the king, the 15th of their constellations that marked the passage of the sun.  Regulus is about 77 light years away, and 150 times the brightness of the sun.  [It is a rapidly spinning ellipsoid 3 and a half times the sun’s mass.]

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.  Text in brackets was omitted from the recorded program due to time constraints.

Addendum

Leo in the southeast. Created using Stellarium.