March 2013

 

 

The Moon                   

                                                        

Last Quarter                         5^th    00:33  –  11:16

New                                      11^th   07:27 –  16:24

First Quarter                        18^th  10:35  --  00:02

Full                                         27^th  17:37  --  07:29

 

Winter has nearly finished or so the calendar suggests, but like the weather forecasts it's wrong. It's cold, too cold to willingly go out to face the chancy cloud/clear night sky, which usually turns out to be cloud. Less of the pessimism! Spring is just round the corner, but when are we getting to the corner? Tomorrow, of course!!

 

Planets

On the 1^st, Mercury rises in daylight and sets just 30 mins after the Sun, so it’s going to be less than safe to observe with instruments. A few days later it should be easier in the mornings as it pulls away from the Sun southwards rather than vertically. This is to say that it will rise within 20 mins of the Sun all the rest of the month but each day will be further to the south from the Sun so will be safer to observe with instruments. By the end of March it will be 8 arcsec and mag 0.4. It will have a 46% phase to show, so see if you can make that out. On the 14^th that will be 15%, but it will be a good deal closer to the Sun and less safe to observe.

Venus is too close to the Sun to observe this month.

Mars too is too close to the Sun for observation.

Jupiter will be 57° up in the south as dusk descends on the 1^st of March. 39 arcsec and mag –2.3, the King of Planets. It will set at 1:45am, giving us plenty of observing time. By month’s end it will be available to us from dusk at about 6:30pm till it set at 12:15am.

Saturn will rise on the 1^st in the company of a ¾ Moon 8° to the right. Even at mag 0.3 and 18 arcsec it will be glared into submission by the Moon. Wait a few days. It will set at 8:45am on the 1^st, but the dawn will already have extinguished it before then. At the end of the month it will rise at 10:15pm slightly larger, and set at 7:45am but again beaten by the dawn. But we’ll have a good few hours of observing time.

Uranus will rise on the 1^st, after the Sun so will not be a morning object. It will be available in the evening of the 1^st from sunset to 8pm when it will itself set. Still the same small disc of 3 arcsec at mag 5.9. It is moving behind the Sun and by the end of the 1^st week it will be available for only an hour after sunset and by mid month we’ll have ¾ of an hour of observing and by the 20^th, it will be too close to the Sun for safe observing.

Neptune will be difficult to observe this month. A morning object for the most part but too close to the Sun in the first two weeks but getting further from the Sun to the south rather than in time, as it will rise at about the same time as the Sun but much further south as the month progresses.

Meteor Showers.

Only one shower peaks in March and that with a best expected of one every 10 mins.

Comets.
There should be one getting close enough to become interesting if the current forecasts bear fruit. But the pundits are already warning us of a less than expected apparition. There is C/2012K5 Linear, in Bootes, mag 13.5 as I write, not visual, but should be photographic. C/2012S1 ISON is the one that is supposed to blow our socks off in November at mag –1. It's currently in Cancer near the Beehive. But we all know how good the experts are at forecasting comets.