Derby and District Astronomical Society
March 2008 Sky Notes
Spring begins in the northern hemisphere this month with the vernal equinox ocurring on the 20th. The clocks also go forward one hour to British Summer Time on the 30th.
With the arrival of spring we are beginning to lose Orion, although it is still visible for a while after dark. Orion is closely followed by
Sirius, though other members of Orion's retinue are visible a while longer - most notably Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Cancer is still well
placed however. The Plough is now high in the north-east by midnight, with its handle pointing straight down to the eastern horizon. The two
end stars in the bowl of the
Plough - Merak and Dubhe - point to Polaris the Pole Star. Capella is now low down in the west,
but at the same time Vega is rising in the east. Capella and Vega are on opposite sides of the celestial pole and never actually set from
Britain. Arcturus in Bootes is now well up in the south-east. If you follow the curve of Plough 'handle' round through Arcturus and keep going
you will come to the bright white star Spica in Virgo, hovering over the south-east horizon. Just to the right (west) of Spica is a
parallelogram of stars comprising the constellation of Corvus (The Crow), with the fainter constellation of Crater (The Cup) next door to the
right (west) of Corvus. Most prominent of the spring constellations though is Leo, now high up in the south, whose brightest star is Regulus.
If the two end stars in the bowl of The Plough are used in the opposite sense away from Polaris then they can be be used to point to Regulus.
The planets Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are all morning objects low in the south-east before sunrise. Mercury
reaches a greatest western elongation of 27° on the 3rd March and during the early part of the month lies to the
upper right of Venus. Venus is by far the brighter at magnitude -3.9 while binoculars will be required to
pick up the 0.0 magnitude Mercury. Both planets get lower in the pre-dawn sky as the month progresses and
Mercury will disappear from view before month's end, with Venus following in early April. The -2.0 magnitude
Jupiter is higher up and to the right of Venus in the morning sky this month. On the 5th March the
crescent Moon joins Venus and Mercury in the south-east before dawn. Mars is still visible
throughout the night, and shines at magnitude +0.3 on the border between Gemini and Taurus. The disc is
now tiny as seen through the telescope, and one will be hard pressed to pick out any detail. Saturn is
also visible all night and lies about 5° to the lower left of Regulus in Leo. The ringed planet shines at
magnitude +0.2 and is a magnificent object in the telescope. Catch the rings while you can, as they will
be edge on to us by next year. On the 19th the nearly full Moon will lie below Saturn.
The Moon is new on the 7th, at first quarter on the 14th, full on the 21st, and at last quarter on the 29th.
The following charts show the sky as it appears from the UK on the 16th March at 23:00 GMT. The stars will be in the same position on the 1st March at 00:00 GMT or at 22:00 GMT on the 31st March. The charts show the sky looking north, east, south and west respectively. You may have to scroll to see the whole of each chart. The sky maps were generated using Stellarium 0.9.1, which can be obtained for free at http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/.
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