What's Up in the Night Sky

March 2022 - Vol. 26, No. 3

This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

The constellations Taurus, with its Pleiades (a tiny "dipper-like" asterism), Orion and the Winter Triangle are now sinking in the W. Castor and Pollux (the Gemini "twins") are shining in the NW while Capella (Auriga) glows above them. Regulus (Leo) shines high in the S as the wandering constellation Hydra appears to create a void below since it has no bright stars. The "Big Dipper" asterism (Ursa Major) high in the NE has appeared to "rotate" so its "handle" is now nearly horizontal. Spica (Virgo) and Arcturus (Bootes) are now rising in the E. Spring is coming!

MERCURY is still in the morning sky early this month favoring southern observers, becomes harder to see in the morning twilight. VENUS shines brightly in the morning sky - - it continues to move away from the Sun until reaching maximum distance on the 20th. MARS is also visible in the early morning sky shining at +1.1 mag by month's end. Mars dances about with Venus in the morning sky, although our sister planet outshines the red planet about 300x. JUPITER is in conjunction with the Sun on March 5th, emerging in the morning sky later in the month. SATURN in the morning sky joins Venus and Mars. URANUS in Aries sets in the evening sky. NEPTUNE is in conjunction with the Sun this month.

Review how to determine Angular Measurement.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time. Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or cable TV's Weather Channel for sunrise and sunset times or check with the U.S. Naval observatory. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

DATE	EVENT
01	Saturn 4 deg. N. of Moon.
02	Mercury 0.7 deg. S. of Saturn.
05	Jupiter in conjunction with the Sun.
07	Uranus .8 deg. N of Moon, occultation from extreme southern locations.
09	Ceres 0.3 deg. N. of Moon, occultation from parts of Australia, E. Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, N. Melanesia, Micronesia, N. Polynesia except Hawaii.
10	Moon at apogee.
12	Venus 4 deg. N. of Mars.
13	Daylight Savings Time begins for affected areas. Neptune in conjunction with the Sun.
20	Earth at Equinox, Spring begins in the northern hemisphere. Look W from a dark location, at about an hour after sunset, to view zodiacal light. ("Zodiacal light" is a vertical band of white light believed to be sunlight reflected from meteoroids found in the plane of the ecliptic, the apparent "path" of the Sun, Moon and Planets as they travel across our sky.) It will appear to be a very large, but very dim, pyramid of white light, "leaning" to the left. This effect may be visible for the next two weeks on dark nights. Venus at greatest elongation W. (47 deg.) Mercury 1.3 deg. S. of Jupiter. (not visible)
21	Mercury at greatest heliocentric latitude S.
24	Moon at perigee.
28	Mars 4 deg. N. of Moon. Venus 7 deg. N. of Moon. Saturn 4 deg. N. of Moon.
29	Venus 2 deg. N. of Saturn.
30	Jupiter 4 deg. N. of Moon.

Lunar Almanac for March 2022

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 02	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 10	Planets & Moon
	Full 18	Moon
	Last Qtr 25	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: Canes Venatici: Dogs of the Northern Sky

The northern sky is a dark place, far from the bright star clouds of the Milky Way. Here be dragons, bears, and hunters. The northern hunters also brought their hunting dogs, in the form of a little constellation known as Canes Venatici. This constellation was introduced by Johannes Hevelius in 1690. Visually, the constellation appears to the naked eye as two stars beneath the the handle of the "Big Dipper", the brighter of the two is known as Cor Coroli, or heart of the king. It is a 2.9 magnitude star accompanied by a 5.5 magnitude companion located about 150 light years away. This double star is very easy to detect in a small telescope. The fainter star is called Chara, a yellow 4.3 magnitude star.

finder chart for Canes Venatici

Canes Venatici is near the north galactic pole of the Milky Way. Because of its position, it is the home of many external galaxies, the brightest Messier galaxies can be located by using the finder chart. The most famous galaxy in this part of the sky is known as M51,also known as the Whirlpool galaxy, actually a pair of interacting galaxies (NGC 5194 and 5195) that are best observed in a larger telescope, 10 inches or better. Its spiral structure was first observed by Lord Rosse using a 72-in telescope in 1845. At mag 8.4 it is bright enough to be seen by smaller instruments, even binoculars, but it will appear as a fuzzy patch.

The galaxy M63, near an 8th mag star is tilted about 30 deg from face on, is sometimes called the "Sunflower" nebula. Another bright galaxy in Canes Venatici is M94, another face on spiral. this galaxy has a large central bulge and is tightly wound and will appear as a round object at a dark site. The last Messier galaxy on this chart, M106 is also a Seyfert galaxy, that emits x-rays.

Another feature of Canes Venatici is the globular star cluster M3, that is not seen in the chart above that was generated by Stellarium, a free open source planetarium program. The above image was created by Dawn Jenkins, using Stellarium and a graphic editing program. The globular M3 is found on a line between Cor Coroli and Arcturus.

The dark galactic pole must share the night with the star clouds of the northern Milky Way, that rise into the night sky just before midnight at the beginning of the month.. The bright presence of those clouds of galactic stars and dust will make it hard to find the dark galaxies of Spring as we move into Summer.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac