dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (05/27/85)
The moon is in the constellation Leo tonight. More on moonlight and starlight -- after this. May 27 The Moon and Regulus That bright object near the first-quarter moon tonight is Regulus -- the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. Regulus is the star at the bottom of the backwards question mark pattern that represents the head of the lion. Ancient skywatchers would have said that the moon tonight is "in" Leo. That simply means that -- from our vantagepoint on Earth -- the moon appears against the pattern of stars that makes up the constellation Leo. When we look at the moon tonight -- we're also looking towards the same general direction of these stars in space. The stars of Leo are far in the background indeed -- while the moon is near the Earth, relatively speaking. Regulus -- the star at the bottom of the backwards question mark -- lies about 85 light years away from us. The light you see from Regulus tonight traveled through space for 85 years -- at 186 thousand miles a second -- before reaching the Earth -- and your eyes. The star at the other end of the question mark -- the curved end -- is called Epsilon Leonis. It's located 340 light years away. Right above Regulus in the question mark pattern is a third star -- Eta Leonis -- whose light traveled through space for two thousand years before arriving in our vicinity. The moon, meanwhile, is much closer. The moonlight you see takes a double journey -- first from the sun to the moon -- which took about eight minutes. Reflected from the moon's surface -- the light then took less than two seconds before reaching your eyes. Script by Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin