Caoimhín's Content

Today we are going to take a quick look at the month of March. We will begin by looking forward to the 3rd of March, the night of the Full Moon, at sunset. As the Sun is setting in the west, Venus appears nice and early just a little above the sunset. It is one of the brightest things in the sky, so it will be one of the first out, but around the same time, Sirius and Jupiter, the brightest star and the second brightest planet, will emerge. Venus is almost a little bit tougher to see than they are because of the orange yellow glow of sunset in the west, which it is much closer to. Even though it is brighter than both of those other objects, it is also in a brighter region of the sky. Venus won’t be in the sky for very long, it sets quite quickly. It’s followed by Saturn, which is also visible, and Neptune, which is not visible to the naked eye. Neptune will still be there next to Saturn, but also very low in the west, surrounded by the orange yellow glow of sunset, and so much tougher to see. Taking a look into the south as the sky gets dark and the Full Moon comes up, we’ve got Orion due south at just 7:20. Uranus is still roughly over by the Pleiades a little further west, and Jupiter is still in Gemini, much the same as what we were seeing later in February.

Of course, once we get into March, we will eventually get to the equinox on the 20th but we’re still pretty far from the equinox here on the 3rd of March. The days will be getting longer and eventually longer than the nights, but not till closer to the end of the month. On the 3rd, we’ve got the Full Moon pretty much in the constellation Leo, and if we take a closer look the Full Moon is 99.8% full. This is the Full Moon that will get a lunar eclipse from the Pacific, but not from here in Ireland. Watching the Moon the whole night through, from a Moon rise to Moon set, we can see the Full Moon the entire time, it doesn’t get blocked out by our shadow. It does reach 100% Full just as it sets in the morning, but its appearance doesn’t really change. We might get to see a little bit of an orange yellow glow as the Moon is rising, what some call a Harvest Moon, just because it’s a Full Moon and as such will be coming up as the Sun sets, putting that orange yellow glow of twilight into the sky. As I mentioned, there is a lunar eclipse happening on March 3rd, we will take a look at that, more than likely in the very next piece, but it’s not visible from here in Ireland, it’s only going to be visible from the Pacific on the opposite side of the planet.

We don’t have much visible in the morning time in March, at least not from Ireland. As we progress towards the end of the month, and we’ll push through here right to the very end of March, closer to the equator people will get to see Mars. Unfortunately, it looks like from here in Ireland the glow of sunrise is just about obscuring it. If we get rid of the atmosphere Mercury and Mars become visible, so from closer to the equator they might be visible with the atmosphere, but from here in Ireland we’ve just got too much sunrise glow. Don’t forget that Mercury is visible just as the Sun is going down at the moment, around the date of posting, and as we get to the end of February as well. Mercury is out at the moment so you do have a chance to see it, but it will be gone for March and even when it comes back in the morning, it may be difficult to see.

Moving ahead to take a look at sunset on the 20th, that brings us through to the equinox. We’ve gone past the New Moon, so the Moon has come around again to be a waxing crescent above the sunset. Venus is nice and prominent, much easier to see than earlier in the month, but Saturn seems to be missing. If we come back a little bit earlier in the month, there is a date when Venus and Saturn are very close together. Unfortunately, it is difficult, at least from here in Ireland, to see both of those planets at the same time, again because of this glow of sunset. So again, we’ll get rid of the atmosphere and there we go, we have Venus, Neptune and Saturn very close together. I think on the 7th is probably the best view, but they are reasonably close for a couple of days. Venus is pretty much in between Neptune and Saturn in the sky, a bit closer to Neptune so especially between Venus and Neptune, this is a close conjunction. However, with the glow of sunset, certainly with trees and buildings in the way, it’s going to be difficult to see from here in Ireland. Taking a look from the western coast, with a perfectly flat horizon, it is visible, just about. It looks like that will be achievable for us a little bit earlier in the month, but we’ll push ahead to the equinox again.

On the 20th, the Sun is just setting and the sky is just getting dark at around 7:20, we won’t really get darkness until practically 8 o’clock, even a little bit later. We’re finally getting back to the time of year when the days will be longer than the nights. By the time it’s truly dark on the night of the equinox, Orion has already moved over to the southwest, Aldebaran, the Hyades, the Pleiades, all of Taurus really, is even further west again. Jupiter is already past due south at just 8:20. Jupiter is still going to be with us for most of the night, but because it’s progressed so far across the sky so early in the night, we know we’re definitely not going to have it for the morning, certainly not for much of morning. We’ve got Leo the Lion, also nice and clear, fully above the horizon by the time the sky is dark, just east of south. As we move forward to midnight, Corvus, Virgo and Leo are arranged high in the sky to the south. The Plough, or the Big Dipper, is practically at the zenith, so once we push through to morning time, it will be past that position. For the majority of February we were able to see pretty much this view of the sky, with the Plough or the Big Dipper nice and high, just as the Sun was rising, but now that we’ve moved that bit later, one more month into the year, we’re going to see them in those positions a bit earlier.

The glow of the Sun will be just starting to creep into the sky at about 5 o’clock. Coming back a tiny bit, just to 4:50, we’re really very close to the sunrise, but the sky is still dark. Scorpius is as high as it will get with Antares practically due south. The Summer Triangle is nice and high in the sky as well. These things were barely visible in any moment of darkness in February. We’re going to head out to the countryside because of course, if those things are in the sky, the Summer Triangle and Scorpius, that means we’ve got the Milky Way, the glow of our galaxy, stretching across the sky as well. At the end of March, or at least once we’re through to the equinox, the glow of the Milky Way is up very early in the morning, we’re still at just about 5 o’clock. Sagittarius is just peeking over the horizon at this time as well, but Sagittarius will get higher as the Sun rises and the glow of the Milky Way disappears. From the countryside, this is still a pretty good view of the night sky, we’ve got plenty of famous constellations visible even with the Milky Way obscured. Looking due south, nice and high due south, pretty close to the zenith is Hercules and next to it Corona Borealis and Boötes, so they’re nice and high in the sky. Underneath, down low we’ve got Antares, but in between we’ve got Serpens and Ophiuchus, taking up a large region of the southern portion of the sky.

Looking specifically at the constellations, we’ve got Scorpius and Libra low to the south, we’ve got Ophiuchus and Serpens above them, and then we’ve got Hercules and Corona Borealis, pretty much due south and almost at the zenith, just as the Sun is rising. From the countryside the sky is still plenty dark enough that plenty of stars are visible, but the glow of the Milky Way is already gone. The brightest stars like the Summer Triangle and Antares, they’re not going to disappear until basically an hour later, almost 6:10 in the countryside. Coming back into the city, everything has already disappeared at 6:10, we’ll have to come back to just about 6 o’clock to still have those things in the sky. Of course we’re not going to get to see the glow of the Milky Way from the city, but coming back to the same time, just about 5 o’clock, will still give us a similar view. Looking into the south, we can at least still see Scorpius and the shape of Serpens, but looking up towards Corona Borealis and Hercules, those constellations are fainter. There’s really only one star of Corona Borealis that’s clearly and easily visible. We still have the shape of Boötes and we still have Spica down to the south west, nice and bright and blue. As the Sun is rising, we can still follow the arc of the Plough’s handle to Arcturus and then spike on to Spica. Once we’re later into March, Arcturus will be visible much earlier in the evening, at just about 9:20.

We’ll push right up to the end of the month just to show the Sun finally setting that little bit later. We’ll look at the 30th, just as our first few bright objects appear. We’ve got Venus, now much higher from the Sun. We’ve got Sirius and we’ve got Jupiter, all visible at just about 8:20 – 8:25. The Sun will be finally staying in the sky a little bit longer, the days will be longer than the nights once we’re past the equinox. We’ll push forward to a good level of darkness, which is tough to achieve with the Moon on the 30th of March, but we are pretty dark at almost 9:40, finally getting back to shorter nights. This of course means we have less time to enjoy the stars and planets, but at least we do have those longer days.

That’s a quick preview of what’s coming up in March, I will take a look at the lunar eclipse that’s coming up on the 3rd of March in the next piece. Hopefully you enjoyed this piece and hopefully you get to see some of these things that are happening in March if they’re visible from your location. If you did enjoy this piece then, please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel Thank you very much for watching and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.