Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/1514778
| THE COLONY NEWS | FEBRUARY 2024 | 15 | THE COLONY NEWS | FEBRUARY 2024 | 15 In Memoriam Charles Howard Bowyer Joann Galliano Dan Maurer Barbara McClure Dale McGuire Robert Oliver Anna Mae Van Every By Mike Vergara, 951-473-5806 February is always the shortest month of the year. Even this year when it has one more day than usual. The notion of the leap year, indeed even the calendar, started out because we humans watched the sky. We have watched the moon's 29½ day cycle, the positions of the stars through the months, the solstices and equinoxes, and eventually figured out that a "year" is 365 days and (almost) six hours long (or 365.2422 days). That extra six-ish hours, added up over time, makes a full day that gets periodically added to the month of February. The current rule for leap years, according to the United States Naval Observatory is: "Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is." February's full moon, the Full Snow Moon, is on the 24th. The reason for this traditional name is because this month typically has the most snow of any month of the year. This full moon is the obverse of the so-called "supermoon" or perigean full moon. It's an apogean full moon, which means it is at its farthest point from Earth in its orbit. Even so, it will still be big, beautiful, and cold! Along with our usual winter objects – the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades, Betelgeuse, and Sirius – Jupiter still rules the evening sky as it heads towards the west. If you're an early riser (and have a clear view to the east), Mars and Venus will be very close together on the morning of the 21st at about 5:30 am, just before the sun makes the sky too bright. To find where the planets and constellations are, visit http://skymaps.com/index.html. From there you can print your own map of the sky for the month. Clear skies! February Night Sky February Night Sky