The Planetarium Lady

09/22/2026

Happy equinox! The Autumn equinox arrives this evening at 8:05pm.
The moment of equinox is when the sun passes from north to south of Earth’s celestial equator.

You often hear that, at the equinoxes, day and night are equal. But there’s actually slightly more daylight than darkness!
The sun appears in Earth’s sky as a disk- not a point, like other stars. Almanacs define sunrise as when the leading edge of the sun first touches the eastern horizon and sunset as when the sun’s trailing edge finally touches the western horizon. This gives us a few extra minutes of sunlight.
A few more minutes of sunlight are also added due to atmospheric refraction— in a prism-like way, the atmosphere bends the angle of sunlight up when the sun is near the horizon, adding minutes of light to our days.
So, no, day and night are not exactly equal at the equinox.

BUT! There is a day on which day and night are equal. The equilux happens a few days after the autumn equinox, and before the spring equinox.

08/27/2026

Deep partial lunar eclipse tonight!!!
It’s almost here! Skywatchers across Africa, Europe and the Americas will see a deep lunar eclipse tonight. The eclipse will be an impressive 96% of the moon’s face within the Earth’s dark umbral shadow at the peak.

Unlike solar eclipses, each stage of a lunar eclipse occurs at the same moment for everyone watching, no matter where. It's just the times on our clocks that will be different; those in the Americas will see it late in their evening time, while western Europe and Africa will need to watch before their sunrise tomorrow morning.

East coast eclipse schedule:
Begins: Thurs, Aug 27 @ 9:23 pm
Maximum: Fri, August 28 @ 12:12 am
Ends: Fri, August 28 @ 3:01 am

07/13/2026

It’s been a busy week bringing “Dinosaurs:A Story of Survival” to libraries in South Royalton, North Hero, Colchester and Manchester. Next week we continue on to Bakersfield, Franklin and Rutland. Kids and adults are loving the tie in between dinosaurs and the evolution of Earth and life on our planet!

07/03/2026

https://earthsky.org/earth/dog-days-of-summer/

You might have heard the hottest days of summer referred to as the “dog days of summer” … but where did this term come from? According to the National Weather Service:

04/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1TW7J4gk9K/?mibextid=wwXIfr

04/01/2026

Tonight, April’s full Pink Moon will rise in the east around sunset, and – if all goes to plan – the Artemis 2 spacecraft will launch 4 astronauts on their way to the moon.

03/20/2026

On equinox night tonight, watch for the moon and Venus floating in the western sky after sunset. an equinox is a crossing. It’s when the sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from south to north. DID YOU KNOW: The fastest sunsets and sunrises of the year happen at the equinoxes. I’m talking about the length of time it takes for the whole sun to rise or sink below the horizon.

02/28/2026

The 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Chazy Rural School in NY learned about our current night sky and solar and lunar eclipses on Thursday— these students were amazing!!!! Go Eagles!!!

02/16/2026

We had a wonderful time connecting the first grade curriculum to patterns in our sky! The first graders learned about the circumpolar constellations, saw that the Sun affects how we see the moon and learned that it’s the blue sky that blocks our window into space during the day! It was great sharing the planetarium with you. Hiawatha!!

02/13/2026

It’s Friday the 13th! Not only that, but it’s the first of this year’s Friday the 13th trilogy; we’ll also have a Friday the 13th in March and November!