The Moon
New -------------- 4th up from 06:11 to 17:49
First Quarter -- 12th up from 09:12 to 01:44
Full --------------- 19th up from 18:28 to 05:31
Last Quarter -- 26th up from 02:14 to 09:50
It’s March and things are stirring outside, flowers and all sorts of things are coming to life. But the weather will likely bite them in the bum with a sharp frost when least expected.
Looking at sunrise times we see that during March this changes from 06:53 to 06:41 a loss of 12 minutes of darkness. But at the other end of the day, sunset changes from 17:41 to 19:37, a loss of an hour and 56 mins of darkness, the hour coming from changing to British Summer Time.
Planets in March.
Jupiter will be virtually at the end of its tenure by the 1st of March, being only 15° high at dusk when the Sun is out of the way. It will also have shrunk to 34arcsec and mag –2.1. By the end of March it will be 4.5° from the Sun, which means it will be on the opposite side of the Sun from us making this the furthest, and therefore the smallest, it normally gets from us.
Uranus too is pretty much as far as it can get from us, presenting a 3arcsec spot at mag 5.9, but as it’s so far out anyway, the circuit the Earth makes round the sun hardly makes much difference, so it’s not much smaller or dimmer than it was in August, when it was 4arcsec and mag 5.7. by the end of March it will have passed the Sun and begun to be a morning object. It will actually pass closest to the Sun on the 21st, whereas Jupiter will do so on the 6th of April.
Neptune is now a morning object, but too close to the Sun to observe till about the 22nd when it’ll rise half an hour before the Sun. Still not a good prospect except for real Neptuneophiles, new word? Because it’s so small and will take some finding. By the 26th it will be within a degree of bright Venus, and on a level with it too, which will make a good pointer for it. Without this guide, avoid it. By the end of the month it will have passed Venus and be up 50 mins before the Sun, but still in morning twilight well lit by the rising sun.
Venus is now the Morning Star, rising 90 mins before the Sun, and bright enough at mag –4.1, not to be mistaken for anything else. It will be showing a 70% phase, which you should see in a telescope. On the 1st, it will have a thin crescent Moon within a degree and a half of it. At the month’s end, Venus will be a little dimmer and smaller and will make a good photo opportunity again with the Moon’s equally thin crescent. Neptune will also be there to make a triangle, but won’t be easily visible with the other two in the picture. However, on the 27th, 50 mins before sunrise, Venus and Neptune will be within 15’ of each other as they rise into the morning sky. Their respective residents will be able to wave to each other. Well, perhaps not.
Saturn will rise on the 1st of March at 9pm, and be available all night for study. On the 31st it will rise in twilight at 7:45pm, and set in the west at 7am, as the Sun is rising on the other side of the sky.
Mars is too close to the Sun so won’t be available all month, again. Not a good month for Mars, but it will get better later in the year.
From about the 8th of March, Mercury will be available for observation, with care. Always with care, for Mercury. But it will set in the west nearly an hour after the Sun, and at mag –1.3 it should be quite easy to see. Try after 6pm. With binoculars you should also see Neptune in the same field, 2° above. The next night at the same time, they will be within half a degree of each other, and on the next, mercurial Mercury will be 2° above Neptune. It will continue its rise away from the Sun till the 25th, when it’ll start to return to the fold. So a good apparition for Mercury this month, available from the 8th to the end of the month.
While I was working out the planets’ timings and noting that Saturn and Jupiter were on opposite sides of our skies, I wondered to myself as to when they’d be on the same side. It turns out that on the 21st of December 2020, they will be. Not only on the same side, but within 6arcmins of each other! So you could get them both, and all their visible moons, in the eyepiece of a telescope! Even at fairly high power.
Meteor Showers in March. No meteor showers of note this month.
Comets. Again none forecast to reach naked eye visibility, But if one does come up, I’ll report it on this blog if I can take it’s picture.
Should you note the promised appearance of a comet in the news media, you can look up it’s ephemerides at http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/ephemerides/comets This will get you to a long list of comets. Click on your choice and its ephemerides will be screened. Look for the line “Download this Ephemeris as a KML file”. Click on it to download it. It should settle on your PC’s desktop or wherever you choose. When it’s arrived, click on the file, or double click if necessary, and it’ll wake up google Earth, if you have it on your machine, and present you with a message suggesting you switch to google Sky. Click on Switch to Sky, and it’ll show you the track of the comet, with dates and mag etc.
You may be able to use this tactic for any comet you hear of, and if you note one worth looking for, let me know.
For manmade satellites, the ISS and Iridium flares etc., you’ll have to check http://www.heavens-above.com , and for any sky charts of planets or stars or other objects, contact me at the observatory at http://donastro.org.uk.