Sky Calendar
Abrams Planetarium
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
This month's most striking sights include two young moons, an easy one at dusk on March 2, and a more difficult one shortly after sunset on March 31. Gatherings involving the moon passing near planets and bright stars occur on the evenings of March 8, 11-14 and 18, and the mornings of March 22, 27 and 28. Morning events are mentioned in Skywatcher's Diary one day prior to the event.)
For more information on observing stars which vary in brightness, write AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers), 25 Birch Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For viewers with telescopes, Mars is not an easy object for study, presenting a disk now only a third the size of Jupiter's. Beginners can look for Syrtis Major, Mars' most prominent dark marking, near the center of the disk tonight at 7:10 p.m. EST, and about 37 minutes later on each successive night. Can you see the north polar cap shrinking rapidly in the Martian spring? This month, Mars' north pole is tipped 17 degrees toward Earth. You can tell which is the north limb of Mars by nudging the telescope toward the North Star; as Mars goes out of the field, its north limb will be the last to depart.
Skywatchers in Hawaii and southernmost Florida and Texas can use binoculars to search for Mercury and Saturn less than 1 degree apart, rising in bright twilight 20 degrees lower left of Venus. Mercury is the lower and brighter of the close pair.
From southernmost parts of Florida and Texas, use binoculars to search for Saturn 5 degrees to moon's lower right. From Hawaii, Saturn is 6 degrees to the moon's right.
From a place with an unobstructed western horizon, note the Sun's location in relation to landscape features just as the solar disk rests on the horizon. (If you have a perfect horizon, this would happen 6 degrees north of due west, 3 minutes before the calculated time of sunset.) Note the time when the sun's disk rests on your horizon, and wait 14 minutes. The moon should then have the same azimuth (direction) as the Sun did 14 minutes earlier, except that the moon will be nearly 7 degrees higher. If at first you don't see the moon with unaided eye, try with binoculars. The hairline thin crescent will have horns pointing nearly upward, and noticeably less than half its circumference will be illuminated by the Sun. This may be noted by imagining the moon's disk as a clock face, and estimating the location of the end points of the crescent on the imaginary clock. For example, the crescent may be lit from 3 o'clock to 8 o'clock.
The above data is calculated for southern Michigan, where moon's age will be only about 22 hours after New. The above details vary from place to place within the U.S., but wherever you are, if the sky is very clear, you should be able to follow the moon for another 20 to 30 minutes as it moves down and to the right and eventually sets.
If you see the moon this evening, note the times when you first spot it, both with optical aid and with the unaided eye, and calculate its age at each sighting. The Moon was New on Thursday at 9:09 p.m. EST, or 6:09 p.m. PST.