Soren (Jim Sturgess: 21) is a young barn owl from the forest of Tyto. The dreamer is just learning to spread his wings when he and his brother are kidnapped by agents of the Pure Ones, an evil flock of hawkish owls who snatch owlets for conscripts. It’s up to Soren, bolstered by bedtime stories about legendary heroes, to escape brainwashing and fly to the Guardians of Ga’Hoole to mount a rescue. His quest for help may forge Soren as a legend himself, as he strives to free the owlets...

As darkness settles, the bright glow of Jupiter pierces the east-southeast horizon, by far the brightest light in the sky, as the moon spends this week waning through pre-dawn skies. The gaseous giant is high in the south at midnight, and as dawn nears, it sets beneath the western horizon. Around 10pm, the star Aldebaran rises in the east. The red glaring eye of Taurus the bull is one of the oldest recognized stars within one of the oldest recognized constellations. Among the paintings found on...

  Summer solstice is still more than a week away, but the sun rises its earliest of the year just before 5:40 Monday the 14th. While solstice is the longest day of the year, it marks neither the earliest sunrise nor the latest sunset, which falls a week after solstice. This is due to several interacting factors cumulatively called the Equation of Time. Earth spins on its 231x2-degree tilt of rotational axis, which causes the changing seasons. It also affects the time of day that the sun...

  A Second Grader’s Plea Dear Bay Weekly: Please reduce, reuse, and recycle. Please reduce using plastic. If you do, you will save oil. Please reuse broken toys. You can make them into something else. Please recycle paper. You can save trees. We need to save the environment. Please reduce, reuse and recycle. –Steven Calabrese, Second Grader: St. Leonard Elementary School - The Story Behind This Week’s First Letter Dear Bay Weekly: I am a second-grade teacher with Calvert...