February 24
The Lion's Heart, Again
Sun Position
The Sun is in Pisces near +11° declination. Northern hemisphere days hover near 11.5 hours; southern mornings are arriving later.
Sky Highlight
No annual event today. Leo is well-placed for evening viewing through February and March; Regulus makes a good target for lunar occultation watching since it sits so close to the ecliptic.
Deep Sky Object
M105, an elliptical galaxy roughly 32 million light-years away. One of the roundest elliptical galaxies accessible to amateur telescopes, M105 is the brightest elliptical in the Leo I galaxy group, its core likely contains a supermassive black hole of around 200 million solar masses. Visible from both hemispheres; best from late winter to spring.
Featured Star
Regulus (α Leo) is a blue-white main-sequence star 79.3 light-years away, spectral class B7V, rotating so rapidly (once every 15.9 hours) that it is measurably oblate. The lion's heart grazed by the Moon every month, the brightest star on the ecliptic. Regulus has been the king's star in cultures from Persia to Rome.
Around This Date
- February 24, 2011Space Shuttle Discovery launched on its 39th and final mission, STS-133, the last flight of the orbiter that had flown more missions than any other shuttle in the fleet.
- February 24, 1987Supernova 1987A appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the closest supernova observed since Kepler's in 1604, and one of the best-studied stellar explosions in history.
The king appears twice in February, a reminder that the sky rewards patience with repetition.