Night Sky Photography -- 02-02-2026 -- The Moon Occults Regulus

 

Last night our beautiful still Full Snow Moon passed in front of the bright star Regulus -- the brightest star of the Constellation Leo the Lion.

Regulus (Alpha Leonis) is the 22nd brightest star in the night sky. Its a blue-white main-sequence star, also known as the "heart of the lion". As I've mentioned before on this site, Regulus may appear to be a single point of light, but its actually a quadruple star system composed of four stars that are organized into two pairs. This system lies approximately 79 light years (or 24.2 parsecs) from our Solar System.

Beginning about 9:00 p.m. EST here in North America, Luna passed in front of (or occulted) Regulus and -- for about a little under two hours -- replaced Regulus to become a part of the Constellation Leo!

I was able to capture three great shots of the occultation of Regulus by our beautifully still mostly full Luna: one before with both bodies shinning through the tree branches, the second during the occultation, and the last after the Moon's orbit eastward finally passed away from Regulus.

Unfortunately I was unable to capture all of the stars of the constellation due to the bright full moon's glare, but I was able to capture the two other bright stars of Leo: Denebola (Beta Leonis) the "lion's tail" and Algieba (Gamma Leonis) during the occultation of Regulus.

Monday Meme: Its Groundhog Day!

"Babe (duh duh, duh duh, duh duh, duh duh) I got you, babe...."
Now its going to be stuck in your head all day long! Happy Groundhog Day, Y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 02-01-2026 -- The Full Snow Moon After The Snowstorm

Good evening fellow stargazers!

Tonight, I captured some outstanding photos of February's full moon in the evening sky, along with a beautiful show of Jupiter and the bright star, Sirius, rising in the eastern sky between the recently snow-covered trees.

The February full moon is known as the Full Snow Moon here in North America -- a beautiful irony since it's a day following the bomb cyclone that hit the Carolinas; ushering in more snowfall that we usually see in these parts, even in the winter!

The first shot shows Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, with the bright twin stars, Castor and Pollux, close by. A close-up of Jupiter shows three of its four largest moons: Callisto, Ganymede, and Io. Europa, the fourth moon, was currently behind Jupiter in its rotation. Sirius, the Dog Star, is nearby further to the southeast clearly visible through the bare trees (a few of which still have snow on them).

The Full Snow Moon is hidden behind the trees for another hour before finally appearing in all her glory. The final shot is the close-up of our lovely full Luna.

A fun fact: because the month of February only has 28 days and the full moon on average only happens once every 29-30 days, there are years where there is no full moon in February! This only happens about once every 19 years, give or take. The last time that happened was in 2018. The next time February won’t have a full moon will be in 2037.

The Greedy Mourning Doves Are Back

 

Over the last few days, a small flock of Mourning Doves (Zenaida macroura) have been visiting my backyard feeders between winter storms.

These lovely birds -- also known as the American Mourning Dove and more colloquially as the turtle dove (yes, as in the popular Christmas song) were once known as the Carolina Pigeon. They come from the same family as doves, the Columbidae is one of the most abundant and widespread North American birds.

They're also notorious for being very greedy eaters....at least when it comes to my backyard feeders. They are usually tolerant of individual smaller songbirds like the Chickadees, Goldfinches, and Sparrows; however when they come around the Cardinals and larger birds will have to wait their turn while they pick through their favorite seeds.  

The following are some of the Mourning Doves that have been visiting my backyard feeders between January 24th just before the winter ice storm, and January 28th a few days before the next batch of uncanny winter weather for my little corner of Dixie is due to take place.