Caoimhín's Content

We are very early into the month of March, so we’re going to take a look forward at a few of the events it will contain. However, we’re also going to review a couple of the things that are happening now, at the end of February. Most of these are occurrences that have been mentioned in previous videos on this channel, including something from yesterday’s Irish language video. Of course, there are also little bits in yesterdays video that won’t be shown in this one, and vice versa.

Starting in late February, a few days after the date of posting, when the Sun sets we’re not going to see Saturn, and it will be a while before we start seeing it again in the morning. Jupiter is still up reasonably high just a couple of days into the future, but it will be in the sky less and less as we move into March. More importantly, the Moon is going to be at its fullest and at its furthest away, the much hyped Micromoon. I’ve mentioned it a few times now in the lead up to it happening, the Micromoon is the Moon when it’s full and over 400,000km away from us, rather than 350,000km, which is it’s closest. The Moon does look pretty much the same, especially to the naked eye, and also because the Moon has come up to this furthest point slowly since the last Supermoon. The next Supermoon won’t be coming up until much later this year, and each Full Moon from now until then will be a little closer, so it will be hard to notice. If you’d like to learn more, there is a whole other post on this website a few posts back, and of course a video on the YouTube channel, about the Supermoon and the Micromoon.

Moving around to morning time, as we leave February, Mars will be coming up in the morning. For us here inn Ireland, it will be above the horizon before the Sun rises, but it still won’t be visible. Thanks to the shallow angle at which Mars is stretching out from the Sun, it will be blocked out by the glow of sunrise. Venus is also going to be there, quite close to Mars in the early morning. It will be visible, even when it appears that Mars is much further from the Sun than Venus. Mars is, of course, further from the Sun than Venus, it’s outside the orbit of the Earth so it’s further from the Sun than we are. In this case, even when it’s apparent position in the sky is also further out from the Sun, it still isn’t visible when Venus is. This is because the angle at which we’re seeing the planets is so low here in Ireland that the glow of sunrise is still quite bright at Mars’ position in the sky. Luckily, Venus is that much brighter than Mars, and it will still shine through, even when it appears closer to the Sun. Just at the end of February, Mars will be quite close to Venus, and Mars certainly isn’t visible in the sky, Mars, at least not from a city with light pollution. It may be more visible in some areas of the countryside, where the sky is dark enough, particularly as Mars moves further from the Sun and Venus. This is a great example of the difference in brightness between Venus and Mars, which is of course part of why Venus was described as the morning star and evening star, it was clearly the last thing visible in the morning or the first thing visible in the evening sky, even to the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

As I demonstrated in the previous video, this is highly dependent on location, particularly on your latitude. Being so far above the equator, even though the ecliptic doesn’t match our equator perfectly, it is still level with a point far further South on the globe. For locations far enough North, neither the Sun nor the Moon will ever be directly overhead, as the ecliptic will peak a little to the South of the middle of the sky. On the other side of the globe, if you are far enough South, the Moon and Sun will always peak to the North of the Middle of the sky. This is also why the Sun gets so low during the winter for us, it’s already low in the sky compared to areas close to the equator. At the equator, there are times when the Sun and the Moon go directly overhead. This doesn’t happen every day of the year, the tilt of the Earth causes the ecliptic to shift from one side of the zenith to the other, but there are occasions when it is exactly in the middle. Having the Sun directly over head is sometimes called the Highest Noon, and it can make things look like they have no shadow. We may look at that in another video.

As I explained in the last video, and thus in the last post on this website as well, the equator of the Earth is much marked by green, in cloud free satellite images at least. Thanks to humidity and convection, tropical rainforests delineate the equator of the planet. From Central Africa, particularly the area in and around the Democratic Republic of Congo and onto Madagascar, across a lot of Northern Brazil and it’s neighbours, up into Central America , and stretching even from the tip of Australia up through Papa New Guinea and into Indonesia, the Philippines and Mainland Southeast Asia. The deserts sit on either side of the equator, despite being famously hot, they exist mostly because of the lack of humidity and even get quite cold at night. This can also be seen with North American Mojave and Sonora Deserts on one side and the Atacama up in the mountains of South America. Similarly, the Sahara and Arabian Deserts sit on the North African side of the equator, while the Kalahari is on the Southern African side. The Iranian Desert leads up into the higher, cooler, Gobi Desert, very far North compared to it’s closest Southern counterpart, the much hotter Great Sandy Desert of Central Australia. Even though we think of deserts as being the hottest places on Earth, and they often are, and the Equator, being often right under the Sun, feels like it should be the hottest part of the planet, it gets a lot more complicated than that thanks to wind patterns and humidity.

We’re travelling to the equator this time to see the planets further from the horizon, and thus, further from that glow of sunrise. Even late in the morning, it can be seen that Venus is much higher from the horizon than we would see it here in Ireland. Earlier in the morning, with the sky just a little darker, we can see Mars, so close to Venus it’s almost tough to see, just a tiny little red dot next to the bright yellowy-orange, orb of Venus. With a telescope, or maybe even binoculars, you can see the colour difference clearly, and that’s something that should be achievable in with rather small telescopes. This close conjunction occurs soon, the morning of the 22nd – 23rd of February, so tomorrow morning if you’re reading this on the date of publishing. Luckily Mars and Venus will remain pretty close to each other for a few more mornings yet. Another interesting thing that we can see from the equator, is the Crescent Moon looking almost looks like a smiley face or a pair of horns rising above the horizon. Just as it’s easier to see the planets at the equator when they’re close to the Sun in the sky, we can do the same with the Moon. This let’s you see the Moon very close to new, looking like a very narrow crescent. The angle at which you would see the Moon puts this arc tangent to the horizon, looking almost like a shallow bowl, as it appears on the flag of Nepal.

Something which occurs all around the world in March is the equinox, which is coming up on the 20th. At the equator, this is the time of year when the Sun is, or at least can be, directly over head, though it occurs at other locations on other times of the year. For the entire world, day and night will be of equal length. At the Poles, twilight will occur for hours as the Sun sets on the South Pole and rises on the North Pole. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the Vernal Equinox or Spring Equinox, from here the days will be longer than the nights, growing longer and longer till they peak at midsummer, then they will get short and short until night and day are equal again at the Autumnal Equinox in September. At that point, the Sun will set for the North Pole, Rise for the South Pole, and the days will be shorter than the nights, getting shorter and shorter until Midwinter. With two opposite solstices we have two equinoxes as well, but they have a lot more in common with each other. At the solstices, the Sun either crosses the horizon at its furthest South when it’s rising and setting, for the winter solstice, or at its furthest North, for the summer solstice. On both of the equinoxes, the Sun will rise exactly in the East and set exactly in the West. We always say that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West and this is broadly true, but it’s only exactly true on the equinoxes, and that’s the same all over the world as well. The Sun will be at it’s most middling height in the sky, rather than it’s highest or it’s lowest, but that may be the least exciting thing about the equinoxes. Each equinox is placed in a different season for each hemisphere, the March equinox is the Autumnal Equinox for the Southern Hemisphere, the September one is their Vernal Equinox.

Coming back to the higher latitudes of Ireland, some things may be obscured at sunset and sunrise, but we can still see the Sun rising exactly in the East and setting exactly in the West. Technically, it looks like the Sun will set exactly in the West the day before the Sun rises exactly in the East for us here in Ireland, which means the exact moment of the equinox must happen over a different place on Earth, somewhere where it’s daytime during night between those two points here in Ireland.

Moving from sunrise in the East to sunset in the West, late in March we also have Mercury coming up. As we always see Mercury just above the Sun whenever we see it, it can also be easier to observe closer to the equator, and should be visible earlier in the month. However, as long as we wait until we’re quite late in March, Mercury should be visible for us as well. As always, it is important to remember how small, faint and close to the horizon Mercury is, even when it’s at its easiest to see, tit can still be difficult compared to planets like Jupiter. By late March, Jupiter’s much further West when it appears in the evening, but it will still be higher from the horizon than Mercury. Coming up to the very end of March, after the equinox, we will come to the Full Moon. This particular Full Moon will undergo a Lunar Eclipse, there is a Lunar Eclipse coming up in March on the 25th, which is the night of the Full Moon. For us in Ireland, the Full Moon may appear to be on the 24th, and you may know where this is going, some of my recent videos have had a bit of a theme. We won’t get to see the Lunar Eclipse here in Ireland, at least not properly. This eclipse is only a penumbral lunar eclipse, meaning that the Moon will fall into the edge of our shadow but not the center, it won’t get really dark and red, it will just get a little bit dimmer, a little grey or pink. Furthermore, this penumbral eclipse won’t cover the entire Moon, though it will cover most of it from the best locations. For us in Ireland, just as the Moon sets, the Earths shadow will begin to creep onto it, similar to the very beginning of a total Lunar Eclipse. With this happening at Moon set and Sun rise, the glow in the sky will make it even harder to spot for us.

It will be much more visible from other parts of the world, and once we get closer to the date of the eclipse we will take a look at the potential view from those better locations. If you don’t want to wait until later in March then you can take a look at the last post on this website and the Irish language YouTube video it includes, which does, as always, have English subtitles. Otherwise, to make sure you catch my video about this penumbral lunar eclipse, you can of course subscribe to my YouTube channel, subscribe directly to this website or follow me on Instagram, which is also @caoimhinscontent. We’ll continue pushing ahead in the next video and I hope you’ll join me back here then.