March begins with a very old moon rising in the east just before dawn, and just barely missing the bright ?Morning Star,? Venus ? a little less than two degrees apart.
Full moon occurs March19; coincidentally, this is the largest full moon of the year, which also means the moon is closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit. Such an occurrence brings extremely large tides to coastal areas.
A tough observation will be Jupiter a couple of days after new moon in the west on the evening of March 6 ?Jupiter hugs the horizon, as does the moon, setting shortly after sundown.
On the evening of March 10, the moon will glide through the Seven Sisters (Pleiades), always a pretty sight in binoculars. March 13, our satellite is just over a degree away from the star cluster, M35. March 28, the asteroid Vesta is just over one degree away from the moon.
Mercury graces the western evening sky during the second half of the month. Watch for a close graze with Jupiter March 16.
Venus, rising in early morning in the east, shares the sky with the moon on both March 1 and 31. They?re a bit further apart on the last day of the month ? six degrees ? just over the width of three fingers held at arm?s length.
Mars is not visible.
Jupiter, the king of planets, has been cruising across the evening sky all winter, and finally it is overcome with the sun?s glare in evening twilight during March. What actually happens is Earth, moving much more rapidly than Jupiter, is placed so the sun is now in the way. When we next see the giant planet, it will be an early morning object, rising before the sun.
Saturn rises in the early evening, and is in its retrograde ?motion,? apparently moving backwards ? east to west. Remember, it is us on our speedier planet that makes the slower-moving planets appear to move ?against the grain.? Ancient astronomers had a hard time figuring out what caused retrograde motion, until Galileo confirmed the Copernican explanation that the Earth was not standing still, with the other Solar System objects circling around us; Earth was moving in orbit around the sun, just like all the other objects. Quite astonishing, at the time!
Uranus is not visible.
Neptune, always a difficult sighting, is out of sight for most of the month, and even when it does appear late in March, it is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere.
? James Edgar has had an interest in the night sky all his life. He joined The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2000. He is editor?s assistant and a contributor to Observer?s Handbook, production manager of the RASC Journal, and is the society?s national secretary.
