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Ephemeris: 03/14/2024 – It’s Pi Day!

March 14, 2024 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Pi Day, Thursday, March 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 11 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 7:48, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:54. The Moon, 3 days before first quarter, will set at 1:47 tomorrow morning.

Yes, it’s Pi day that’s the Greek letter π for 3.14 approximating the ratio of the circle’s circumference to its diameter, which scientific and technical people celebrate by baking a pie P-I-E and carving the Greek letter π on the top.

Tonight around 9 or 9:30 when it gets dark, is a good time to use the Moon to find the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters star cluster. The Pleiades will appear above the crescent Moon this evening, so it’s a good time to locate them if you haven’t already. We only have about another month viewing the Pleiades in the evening. And we have one more passage of the Moon by the Pleiades next month before they disappear from the evening sky.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Have a slice of Pi Day pie
Here’s a link to NASA’s Pi Day Challenge: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/nasapidaychallenge/. This link also has a link for educators for STEM related challenges.
There’s another Pi day that some celebrate. A well-known approximation of pi is the fraction 22/7ths. Europeans and others write dates in day/month order, so July 22nd is also a Pi Day: 22/7.
The moon and the Pleiades as they might be seen this evening in binoculars at 9:00 PM . Jupiter will continue to approach the Pleiades until it sets at 1:44 AM. For locations west of us (Michigan) Jupiter will get even closer. Created using Stellarium.
Categories: Celebration, Conjunction, Ephemeris Program, Observing Tags: , ,