for a fine Spring this year. As I type, the Equinox will occur in 54 minutes. This is a striking photo!
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2026 March 20
Spring Equinox at Teide Observatory
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)
Explanation: The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That’s when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth’s sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe. In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at upper right and the south celestial pole beyond the lower left edge (and below the Teide horizon). The foreground includes the distant Teide volcano peak and the observatory’s pyramid-shaped solar laboratory building.
Tomorrow’s picture: NGC 1300 and Friends
Scottie's Playtime 
Yesterday, the last day of Winter!!!, marked Tucson’s earliest ever recorded 100° F day, by a mile (the previous record was April 11.) Yuck.
Those nasty Chinese and their Global Warming Hoax!!! (actually this is because of an unusually strong high pressure front moving in and sitting on us, but it’s generating high winds, high heat and in the dry west, that means wildfires 😦 )
That sure is a pretty picture though! 🙂
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It is a nice picture.
88 degrees at 2PM today in Southern KS. We are fortunate to have very calm winds today, though that will change; wind has been decent prior to today. So, yes, Red Flags and Fire Weather Warnings galore! Oh, to be -well, wherever!- when Spring has come!
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We are still ‘taking the chill off” with two woodstoves, now and then the thermometer reaches 40 degrees and we just bask in it. Then again New England is not exactly southern anything and we could still have snow. We don’t take the chains off the tractor until June. You Never Know.
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You do never know! We had single digit temps earlier this week. The high pressure area BDR mentioned looks to be expanding, also eastward. We’ll get a cooler day of low 60s on Sunday and Monday, then high 70s and mid 80s to finish next week.
Probably! As you say, you never know!
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