February 28
The Girdle of the Lion
Sun Position
The Sun is in Pisces near +12° declination. February's last full day in common years; northern hemisphere days are close to 12 hours.
Sky Highlight
No annual event today. Late February is the final window to see winter constellations (Orion, Gemini, Canis Major) near their best evening positions before they begin sinking toward the western horizon in March.
Deep Sky Object
NGC 3521, a spiral galaxy about 26 million light-years away. A flocculent spiral galaxy in Leo with ragged, patchy arms rather than grand symmetric spirals, a common galaxy type that Messier missed but which modern amateur observers can reach with a 6-inch telescope. Visible from both hemispheres; best in late winter and spring.
Featured Star
Zosma (δ Leo) is a main-sequence A-type star just 58.4 light-years away, spectral class A4V, and one of the few stars with both a Greek Bayer letter and a name derived from two entirely different cultural traditions. The lion's girdle, called Zosma from Greek but catalogued under an Arabic name, a star that carried two identities for a thousand years without resolving them.
Around This Date
- February 28, 1802Heinrich Olbers discovered Pallas, the second known asteroid, demonstrating that Ceres was not alone and suggesting a belt of small bodies orbited between Mars and Jupiter.
- February 27, 1897Bernard Lyot was born in Paris; he would invent the coronagraph in 1930, enabling direct observation of the solar corona without waiting for a total eclipse.
February ends without ceremony in common years, the lion's girdle, 58 light-years away, doesn't notice the calendar.