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Today we are going to take a more general look ahead to the month of March. We’ve got some eclipses coming up, which is very exciting, we have both a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse if you are in the right part of the planet.

Even though the parade of planets is over, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Mars are all going to look great. We have lost Saturn, but if anything, it is easier to see Mercury in March. It will be easier to see Mercury for the first week or so of March than it was to see Mercury with Saturn while the parade of planets was going on. If you really want to get a look at Mercury, now is actually a better time. Mercury won’t stay in the sky for very long, and of course, neither will Venus. Mercury is coming up to its greatest elongation, but it’s still not in the sky for a very long time.

Looking at the early part of March, we will have a little bit of light from the Moon, the Moon just came out from being new as we got into the beginning of March. Looking at the sky for just 7:30 brings Orion pretty much dead center due South. There will still be a slight glow this early, but already  we’ve got Mars and Jupiter nice and high pretty much either side of due south. Venus is low to the west, but nice and bright.

Orion is there pretty much in its peak position coming into March, it will be up at its highest in the south just as the sky is coming up to its darkest. We are really going to be losing Orion moving forward, Orion is already past the south with the sunlight into the sky by the middle of March.

As we come up to the end of March, Orion will be appearing very much in the southwest. The sky is really changing quickly as we come past the equinox, which is of course coming up this month as well, we have the March or vernal equinox coming up. With the planets we have some constellations, particularly Gemini and Taurus. These are constellations that were featuring quite prominently over the course of February because Mars and Jupiter are in them respectively. They are coming up to their peak and they will be moving past that peak as we get through March.

March is really a fantastic time to look for any of those, and as always, it’s a fantastic time to head out to the countryside. Every time is a fantastic time to head out to the countryside, you’ll get a significantly better view.

Coming back a little bit earlier here, just to the beginning of March, the Moon will be pretty much out of the way as early as 8 or 9 o’clock. It was mentioned on a comment on a recent video, that Venus on a clear, dark, moonless night, when Venus is bright, it’s bright enough to cast a shadow. You can kind of see that effect when the moon is still very new, there is a fair portion of the sky there illuminated by Venus, almost like a halo.

It is incredibly, incredibly bright, but not bright enough to obscure the Milky Way. As we move later in the month, we’ll see the Moon coming past full, then it will be able to obscure the Milky Way. Early in the night, that’s partly because we’re looking at the outer limb of the Milky Way. We are not yet at the time of year where the summer triangle is rising in the east as the Sun sets in the west. The summer triangle will of course begin to do that for summertime. Now that we’re almost passing the vernal equinox in March, we are getting closer and closer to that point, but we are certainly not there yet. Moving through the night on the 1st of March, we can see the faint arm of the Milky Way setting over to the west.

Venus is gone out of our sky before the Moon in early March, with Jupiter following it later and Mars following it a little bit later again. Then above the Sun we have Vega, the top of the summer triangle after coming up. The Plough or the Big Dipper pretty much reaches the zenith at about quarter to three in the morning, that tells us that the Plough or the Big Dipper will be quite low earlier in the evening. Pushing very close to morning, we’re just starting to a view of the Milky Way’s core. This was quite difficult in February, with the glow of the Sun creeping over the horizon. You may see it in early March around 5:20 in the morning. By 6 or 7 o’clock we’re really going to start getting some sunlight over there in the east, which will block out the galaxy. We’re starting to see some of the core of the Milky Way, if you can stay awake late enough, if you can stay awake or get up early enough, get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, then you will have that glow of the Milky Way there. We’re seeing it until just about 6 o’clock. It’s gone a little afterwards because we have that glow of the Sun coming back into the sky.

Now if we were to move ahead from here, looking at the morning sky on the 2nd of March, we’re getting closer to summer. The sky is going to get that bit brighter and  Venus comes back into view in the morning. Venus orbits the Sun so quickly, we’re losing Venus on one side and then getting it back on the other quite soon afterwards. This is partly thanks to the angle at which we’re seeing Venus, it may allow us to see Venus in the morning and the evening.

The morning brings us the summer triangle, really clear in the morning for March. Early in the month, this will help you find the Milky Way. However, by the middle of the month, it only shows where the glow of the Milky Way would be there if it wasn’t for that Full Moon. Pushing later the Moon will come right through where the core of the Milky Way would be. Of course, the Moon is less than full at this point, we’re coming up to our Last Quarter Moon. The Last Quarter Moon, a Half Moon, will be right in the glow of the Milky Way, with Sagittarius on one side and Scorpius on the other, which looks quite nice. It doesn’t look like we’re getting an occultation of Antares there or anything, but that’s okay.

We’ll continue to move forward to the end of the month, as I mentioned in the last piece, we are having a solar eclipse at the end of the month. I will deal with that solar eclipse as we come closer, but of course a solar eclipse happens during the New Moon, so no Moon in the sky. We are closer to summer, but we can see the glow of the Milky Way at just about 4:30 / 4:40 in the morning and it’ll be staying there and rising much earlier, closer to two or three. We’ve got a lot longer to see the core of the Milky Way in the morning once we’re through till the end of March. It’s tricky in the beginning of March because the Sun is still rising so close to the location of the center of the Milky Way and not really possible in the middle of March due to that Full Moon, the same Full Moon where we are going to get a lunar eclipse of some sort.

While we are looking at the sky here in the countryside for the end of the month, I know that there’s not any particular meteor showers in the beginning of March, but we always have the antihelion, that’s always going to be providing us with some meteors,there’s always some meteors coming through the sky. For the entire month of March we’re not seeing the radiants of any particularly big meteor showers, but that’s okay, a few background meteor showers is fine, especially when we have such interesting things as the lunar eclipse coming up as well as the solar eclipse, over the course of this month.

In my videos I will be going through a lot of the information in Irish, you can expect a couple of Irish videos coming up this month because Seachtain na Gaeilge is running this month. If you’re interested in Irish language videos, I will have quite a few of them coming, if you are not an Irish speaker, if you’re not a Gaeilgeoir, then those videos will be subtitled, so you will still be able to get the information out of the Irish language videos when they come up. Of course I cover the same information regularly as I go through the month, I’ll mention and retention things. I mentioned the eclipses in the last time and I mentioned them this time, even though we didn’t look at them. We’ll take a closer look at them coming up near the end of the month as well. I will also of course have these articles in English regardless of the video, so if you are a reader then no need to worry.

Back to sunset and the middle of the month, we can see Mercury and Venus nice and close together as we come up to the 13th. This is past Mercury’s greatest elongation, but that actually brings Venus lower in the sky a little bit closer to it as well. In a dark countryside sky, they’re still nice and easy to see even if we get a little bit further into the future. By the 14th, they’re very low in the sky, but despite the thickness of the atmosphere, there’s so little sunlight, it won’t make too much of a difference if you’re in the countryside. Uranus is still up as well and we are going to have Uranus the whole way through March, as long as you’re willing to wait for darkness and get out your telescope. Uranus is still there even as we come up to the very end of next month. Jupiter and Mars are still there as well, but looking at sunset at the end of the month, on March 31, Mars is already past south once the sky is getting dark. If we were to come back into the city it would be harder, and using Cork city as an example only technically gives us a suburban level of light pollution, it’s not even as dark as many cities. As the Sun is setting, we probably won’t catch a glimpse of Venus, but Venus is around into morning time.

At the end of the month, by the time the sky is getting dark, Mars, Jupiter and the Moon are already very much over in the west, we will be passing the time to look at the planets. If you want to see the most of the planets in the best possible way, this is the month to do it, especially the early part of March if you want to catch Mercury. Venus is going to be nice and bright as we come through March, and then we’ve got Jupiter and Mars, they are going to stay with us for another couple of months. They are still going to be in the evening sky for a while, but lower and lower, we’re really coming past the moment where they are now at their peak.

I hope that you enjoyed this more general overview of the sky in March, if you did enjoy it, then please do like this article. If you enjoy this kind of content, please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.