SkyEye

Welcome to SkyEye, your guide to this month's celestial events.

March 2010

All times and dates are given in Universal Time (UT).
Nightly darkness estimates are calculated for 45° N and 30° S.
Like total solar eclipses, lunar occultation events can be seen only from limited regions on Earth (and sometimes not at all if the occultation takes place during daylight hours). However, the Moon will appear close in the sky to its "target" for some hours either side of the actual occultation, regardless of where you are.

Date		Event
1	Mon
2	Tue
3	Wed
4	Thu
5	Fri
6	Sat
7	Sun	Last Quarter Moon
8	Mon
9	Tue
10	Wed
11	Thu
12	Fri	Apogee
13	Sat	This is a perfect year for observing the Gamma Normids.
14	Sun	Mercury at superior conjunction
15	Mon	New Moon
16	Tue
17	Wed	Uranus at conjunction
18	Thu
19	Fri
20	Sat	Equinox
21	Sun	Moon occults the Pleiades: visible from around 00:00 UT in southern Mexico, parts of the Carribean, Central America, and northern and western South America.
22	Mon	Saturn at opposition
23	Tue	First Quarter Moon
24	Wed
25	Thu
26	Fri
27	Sat
28	Sun	Perigee
29	Mon
30	Tue	For parts of the world five or more hours ahead (east) of Greenwich, this is a blue moon, by modern definition the second Full Moon this month.
31	Wed

The Solar System

The word planet is derived from the Greek word for "wanderer." Unlike the background stars, planets seem to move around the sky, keeping mostly to a narrow track called the ecliptic, the path of the Sun across the stars. Dwarf planets and small solar-system bodies including comets, are not so constrained, often moving far above or below the ecliptic.

Sun: Aquarius » Pisces
The solar south pole is most inclined toward the Earth early this month. An equinox occurs on Earth on 20 March. The word equinox means "equal night" so that on this day, the (centre of the) Sun spends an equal amount of time above and below the horizon everywhere on the planet.
Mercury: Aquarius » Pisces » Cetus » Pisces
Observers in the southern hemisphere may catch a glimpse of this tiny planet in the east before sunrise early in the month. However, it soon descends into the morning twilight as it reaches superior conjunction on 14 March. Northern hemisphere sky watchers get their chance a week later when Mercury reappears in the west after sunset and begins a rapid ascent into the evening twilight.
Venus: Aquarius » Pisces » Cetus » Pisces » Aries
The "evening star" is best seen from the northern hemisphere as it rises rapidly above the western horizon after sunset. It's getting higher in the sky as seen from the southern hemisphere too but not to the same extent.
Mars: Cancer
Look for the red planet high in the sky at nightfall.
Jupiter: Aquarius
The largest planet in the solar system was a conjunction late last month and is still lost in the solar glare, rising just ahead of the Sun by the end of the month.
Saturn: Virgo
At opposition on 22 March, the ringed planet is above the horizon all night.
Uranus: Pisces
This gas giant is unobservable this month as it is at conjunction on 17 March.
Neptune: Capricornus » Aquarius
A small telescope is necessary to view the most distant planet in the solar system but observations are difficult because Neptune was at conjunction last month and rises during morning twilight.

The Celestial Sphere

Constellations are patterns of stars in the sky. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recognises 88 different constellations. The brightest stars as seen from the Earth are easy to spot but do you know their proper names? With a set of binoculars you can look for fainter objects such as nebulae and galaxies or some of the closest stars to the Sun.

Descriptions of the sky for observers in both the northern and southern hemispheres are available for the following times this month. Subtract one hour from your local time if summer (daylight savings) time is in effect.

Local Time	Northern Hemisphere	Southern Hemisphere
1730 hours (1830 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
1930 hours (2030 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
2130 hours (2230 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
2330 hours (0030 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
0130 hours (0230 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
0330 hours (0430 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S
0530 hours (0630 hours summer time)	45° N	30° S

For More Information...

Consult our online glossary for non-technical explanations of many of the astronomical terms used in these pages.
Blue moons, eclipses, the dates of Easter and much more can be found at the Interactive Astronomy Pages.
For more information about the objects and events described in SkyEye, visit these astronomy-related sites.

Credits

Much of this information can be found in this month's issue of your favourite amateur astronomy magazine available in your local bookshop. Another excellent source is the current edition of the Astronomical Calendar by Guy Ottewell and published by the Universal Workshop at Furman University.

The SkyEye banner features a collision of galaxy clusters and is courtesy of NASA, ESA, CXC, M. Bradac (University of California, Santa Barbara) and S. Allen (Stanford University). When MACS J0025.4-1222 was formed, gravity caused the ordinary matter in the colliding galaxy clusters to slow down whereas the dark matter, which at best interacts only weakly with itself, continued on its original course. Thus, this object provides both confirmation of the existence of dark matter and a further understanding of its properties. This image is a composite of Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory data where dark matter is coloured blue (mapped by Hubble using gravitational lensing techniques) and ordinary matter is coloured pink (mapped by Chandra detecting X-rays from gas heated by the collision).