The Night Sky March 2010

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Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the night sky during March 2010.

Northern Hemisphere

As the Sun sets there is a lovely skyscape to the south, with Orion just a little to the west of south. Below to its left is the very bright star Sirius in Canis Major and up to its left are the heavenly twins Gemini. High overhead is Auriga with the bright star Capella. As the night moves on, Leo rises at about 9pm and getting high overhead is Ursa Major.

The Planets

• Jupiter passed behind the sun at the end of February but will reappear in the predawn sky at the very end of the month.
• Saturn is coming to the best few months and can be seen at magnitude +0.6 for much of the night. It reaches opposition on March 21st. The angular size stays pretty constant at 19.5 arcseconds and the extent of the rings is 44 arcseconds. The rings are close to edge on, at about 4 degrees and will drop to 3 degrees by the end of the month.
• Mercury passes behind the Sun on March 14th but reappears again in the twilight sky along with Venus in the last week of March. Might spot it with binoculars on March 22nd about 20 mins after sunset.
• Mars is fairly high in the south east after sunset. It will be well up in the south and highest in the sky at about about 8.30 in the evening. It continues to move westward into Cancer until March 8th and then it resumes its eastern track across the sky.
• Venus becomes prominent in the evening sky as it climbs higher at magnitude -3.9.

Highlights

• Look towards Leo at about 10pm for a really nice skyscape. Leo is in the centre of the field with Saturn down to the lower left in Virgo. Up to the right we see Mars in Cancer. The asteroid Vesta continues across the sickle up to the top right hand star of the arc of the head of the lion. Vesta is the 5th brightest object within the sickle.
• After sunset on March 31st, Venus and Mercury will be quite close, just 3.3 degrees apart. They'll stay around that until April 4th when they are just 3 degrees apart. Binoculars will help to pick out Mercury.
• The Hyades and Pleiades open clusters are well up after sunset.
• With a small telescope or 8x40 binoculars you may be able to see a white dwarf in the constellation Eridanus not long after sunset. Find the star Omicron-2, to the right of Rigel and you might be able to spot a white 9th magnitude companion which is a white dwarf.
• One binocular field below and a touch to the left of Sirius is the open cluster M41. Amongst the blue stars of the cluster is one red giant star.

Southern Hemisphere

After sunset, the Milky Way is running up from just to the left of due south towards the zenith. Not far from the horizon is Alpha Centauri at magnitude 0.01. With Beta Centauri, they are the pointers to the Southern Cross just above and to the left. Higher in the sky and a little bit to the right of due south is the constellation Carina, and the bright star at top is Canopus. This is one of the brightest stars in the nearby part of our galaxy and is used as a navigation beacon for spacecraft.

Provided courtesy of: http://www.jodcast.net/