03/27/2014 – Ephemeris – Hydra and the Great Underwater Panther
Ephemeris for Thursday, March 27th. The sun will rise at 7:32. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 31 minutes, setting at 8:03. The moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 6:06 tomorrow morning.
Today I will take a fresh, for me at least look at the constellation of Hydra the water snake of Greek origin and the Great Underwater Panther of our local Anishinabek people. Between the bright star Regulus in Leo the lion and Procyon in Canis Minor, Orion’s small hunting dog is a drooping group of 6 stars that makes up the head of Hydra. The rest of his stars trail snakily to the southeastern horizon at 10 p.m. He won’t be fully risen until 1 a.m. In the mythology of the Anishinabek people The head of Hydra is the head of the Great Underwater Panther, his back and tail run to Regulus and the front of Leo. In the spring of thinning ice when someone broke through it was credited to this panther, who pulled the person underwater.
Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
The Anishinabek people contain the Ojibwe or Chippewa, Ottawa or Odawa, and Algonquin peoples. The Chippewa and Ottawa are indigenous to much of northern Michigan.
Alternately showing Leo and Hydra of our “Western” constellations and the Anishinabek constellation of the Great Underwater Panther. Created using Stellarium. The constellation drawing of the panther is mine after Michael Wassegijig Price.
The constellation Great Underwater Panther screen shot taken from the YouTube video “Stellar Connections: Explorations in Cultural Astronomy – Pt. 2” by Michael Wassegijig Price.
Below is the video source for the above image.
Here is a link to the video.
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 
My husband thought he saw a comet or something next to the moon this morning at 6:25 ET–he was so struck by it that he called me from his car. When I looked, it appeared that the lower end of the crescent had a tail–but when I got my camera and focused it, the crescent had a normal appearance. My husband I and I are not versed in astronomy, therefore my description is crude. Venus was so bright, it had the appearance of an airplane headed toward me. These are our coordinates from google maps 38.983187,-76.696369
If you saw the crescent Moon and Venus you saw everything that belonged in the sky there. The March 26th blog entry has a computer generated image of what was expected in the sky near Venus and the Moon. Comets don’t act the way that was described. But I do know that aircraft tower controllers have given Venus permission to land. At least that’s what I’ve heard.