The Moon
Last Quarter is on the 7th -- up from 02:15 to 09:11
New is on the 15th -- up from 05:47 to 18:09
First Quarter is on the 23rd -- up from 09:36 to 02:28
Full is on the 30th -- up from 19:47 to 05:17
Planets - Neptune, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Uranus are all clustered round the Sun as it rises, so it’s not advisable to look for them in the mornings till April.
Jupiter is too close to the Sun to be observed during March, so it’s out of bounds.
Saturn. At the start of March, Saturn will be rising about 8pm and will be a reasonable size of 19 arcsec and mag 0.6. It will be in the sky all night from then. The rings are still almost edge-on so it hasn’t its usual presence, but is still worth the look and worth a try with a camera. As always, the higher it is in the sky the better, and it does get up high too.
Venus is too close to the rising Sun for all of March, so another one to avoid in the mornings, but as the month progresses it’ll be available soon after sunset, low in the west, big and very bright at mag –3.9.
Though Mars is fairly close to Earth, it’s getting further each month as Earth speeds away on an inside track round the Sun. It will rise at 1:30pm on the 1st of March and be 50° up by dusk and will get up to 60° later in March.By the end of the month Earth will have pulled away from it so it will present a 6arcsec disc and be mag 0.2, whereas at its closest approach it’s disc was 14 arcsec and mag –1.3, a shadow of it’s former self. It’ll be setting at 5am by the 31st too so make the most of it while you can, as it’s still close enough for detail to be seen on the disc.
Mercury isn’t available in the mornings but will be in the evenings from about the 20th soon after sunset, but be careful and wait till the Sun has set
Uranus rushes past the Sun in early March to approach Jupiter but will not be safely visible all
Neptune rises just before the Sun and sets well before it so isn’t available all month.
Meteor Showers.
None of note in March.
Comets. 81P/Wild is in the eastern end of Virgo, rising at 9pm-ish and will be in the sky all night for the month, but it will need a telescope to see it’s hazy mag 11 blob.
Individual star charts available if you need them, for anything mentioned above by asking in the comments below.
What else?
This is the time of year when the nights get shorter leaving us with less observing time, but it’s also when the major galaxy areas come up for observing, the areas of Virgo, Coma Berenices, Leo and Ursa Major, though that one is circum-polar. Try some galaxies, M64, M66, M65, M95, M96, M104, M87, M84, M85, M100. A nice globular M53 and close by is a good open cluster NGC5053, another globular near by is NGC4154, and M3 is a stone’s throw away, figuratively speaking. Lots of galaxies to see and take pictures of, but it doesn’t rule out the clusters and nebulae in the disc of our galaxy, as those areas are still available in Monoceros, Taurus, Auriga, Perseus and Cassiopeia. A good mixture of things to see. It’s also a bit warmer, hopefully.
Satellites. There are lots of satellites to see passing over Doncaster but I’d rather let you use www.heavens-above.com to seek out the type you’d like to see rather than me make a long list. Alternatively, I can produce a list of those you favour for you individually.
Brian