Heaven Knows

In the spin cycle of the universe, days stretch and shrink like laundry. During the astronomical phenomenon known as the equinox, night and day briefly become almost identical parcels of time as the sun traverses the celestial equator. This occurs twice a year with the vernal equinox, signifying the advent of spring, and the autumnal equinox, marking the arrival of fall in September.

According to the stars (groundhogs are sparse in these parts), spring sprang the morning of March 20, but the stargazers and astro-wizards of the Southern Cross Astronomical Society (SCAS) remain undaunted. They'll be on hand Friday night, March 23, at the Enchanted Forest Nature Center's annual Spring Skywatch Equinox Partyto give you a better view of the wonders of the vernal equinox.

Weather permitting, they'll set up their telescopes for a star search in the park's west meadow (near NE Seventeenth Avenue). Barb Yager, one of SCAS's directors and a twenty-year member of the nonprofit group, says they'll be on the lookout for planets Venus ("setting rather early now"), Saturn, and Jupiter, as well as Jupiter's closest moons, star clusters Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) and Hyades, the Great Orion Nebula, and spring constellations now rising in the east. Those who tire of gargantuan gas clouds can take a moonlight hike led by a park naturalist through the lovely oak forest. Youngsters may delight in meeting the center's (small) animal residents. And hungry attendees can munch on an outdoorsy feast of hot dogs, s'mores, and lemonade.

So the endless magic of the galaxy is yours to discover. But don't delay. Our window on it may become increasingly obscured. Referring to SCAS's 1922 Miami origins, a starstruck Yager laments, "Then they didn't have streetlights and all this horrendous light pollution that is fading out our night sky."