Wintry winds can still blow fierce in early March. By month’s end, wisps of April breezes promise warmer weather. The folklore phrase, “In like a Lion, out like a Lamb,” illustrates March’s changeable weather and the hope that if a month storms in like a lion, it will exit sweetly as a lamb.

In the stars, a lamb in the form of the constellation, Aries the Ram, slips to the horizon at month’s end, as Leo the Lion rises in the east to claim its rule over springtime skies. The king of spring is easy to locate. A distinctive backwards question mark shapes the lion’s mane. Three stars in a triangle shape form his hind quarters. At the Lion’s heart is the 21st brightest star, the blue-white dazzler, Regulus. While it appears as a single glittering star to the human eye, Regulus is a structure of four stars. Its brightness designated it as a celestial navigation star. Its intensity and location near the ecliptic have made the star famous. Ancient Babylonians thought it the most important of Four Royal Stars marking the seasons.

All stargazers noted the frequency Regulus appears near the Moon. On Sun., March 29, Regulus will be in a lovely conjunction with the waxing gibbous moon. On Sun., April 26, a lunar occultation, when the moon fully conceals a celestial object, will be visible in Pittsburgh twilight.