<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If evening planetary gazing is your thing, March is going to be a big disappointment to you.\u00a0 There are no naked eye planets visible in the evening sky this month.\u00a0 <\/span>Uranus <\/b>will be in the western sky and will be visible with binoculars or a small telescope about an hour after sunset.\u00a0 If the <\/span>Crescent Moon<\/b> is visible on Sunday March 6, look for Uranus directly above the Moon or below the Moon on March 7.\u00a0 Uranus will sink closer to the horizon each evening.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It should be possible to see the <\/span>Zodiacal Light<\/b> in the western sky once the Moon leaves the evening sky during the second half of March.\u00a0 The Zodiacal Light appears as a faint glow along the <\/span>ecliptic<\/b>.\u00a0 It is caused by sunlight being reflected toward <\/span>Earth <\/b>by interplanetary dust.\u00a0 The ecliptic is the apparent path the <\/span>Sun <\/b>traces across the constellations as the Earth orbits the Sun.\u00a0 If you can locate the twelve constellations of the <\/span>Zodiac<\/b>, then you will know where to look for the Zodiacal Light in the west.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There may be a dearth of evening planets in March, but early risers will have plenty of viewing opportunities in the SE sky.\u00a0 <\/span>Venus<\/b> will still be the star of the show as it reaches its greatest <\/span>elongation<\/b> (47 degrees west from the Sun) on March 20.\u00a0 The phase of Venus we see will grow from 32 percent to 55 percent during the Month and shine with a magnitude of -4.4 as it reaches its highest point in the sky for 2022.\u00a0 Early in March, faint <\/span>Mars<\/b> will be located just below Venus 40 minutes before sunrise.\u00a0 By the end of the month, the <\/span>Red Planet<\/b> will be to the right of Venus.\u00a0 <\/span>Saturn <\/b>begins the month low in the ESE very close to <\/span>Mercury.<\/b>\u00a0 While Mercury will soon drop out of sight, Saturn will continue to rise until it is directly below Venus on March 27.\u00a0 During the last four days of the month (Mar 29 – 31), Saturn will slowly climb until it forms a line with Venus on its left and Mars on its right (again, viewed 40 minutes before sunrise).\u00a0 Wednesday March 16 will find Mars only 3.9 degrees to the lower right of Venus (the width of your little finger tip held at arm’s length equals about one degree).\u00a0 On March 29, the distance between Venus and Saturn will only be 2.1 degrees and it, too, will now be positioned to the lower right of Venus.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Jupiter<\/b> will finally reappear late in March, but it will not be easy to view until next month.\u00a0 Your observing challenge is to see what day you can finally see this <\/span>Gas Giant <\/b>in April.\u00a0 It just may be possible to see it in the ESE just left of the <\/span>Old Crescent Moon<\/b> in the twilight ten minutes before sunrise on Wednesday March 30.\u00a0 If you see Jupiter on March 30 or 31, you will need to add a gold star to your observation log to mark your elevation to the rank of SPF (\u2018superior planet finder\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The <\/span>New Moon <\/b>takes place on Wed March 2.\u00a0 The new Lunar Cycle will see the <\/span>First Quarter Moon <\/b>on Mar 10, the <\/span>Full Moon <\/b>on Mar 18, and the <\/span>Last Quarter Moon <\/b>on Mar 25.\u00a0 The next <\/span>New Moon <\/b>will be interesting because it will take place on <\/span>March 31 <\/b>for the west coast (11:24 p.m. PDT) and <\/span>April 1<\/b> for the rest of the country (2:24 a.m. EDT, 1:24 a.m. CDT and 12:24 a.m. MDT).\u00a0 The Moon will be at apogee (251,200 miles from Earth) at 6 p.m. EST on March 10 and at perigee (229,758 miles) at 8 p.m. EDT on March 23.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Daylight Saving Time <\/b>begins at 2:00 a.m. local time on <\/span>March 13.\u00a0 <\/b>The <\/span>Vernal <\/b>or <\/span>Spring Equinox <\/b>for the northern hemisphere begins at 11:33 a.m. EDT on March 20.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/b>Equinox means \u2018equal night\u2019 and on this date, all points on the globe receive 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness as the Earth\u2019s axis of rotation is not pointing toward or away from the Sun.\u00a0 It also means we will have reclaimed one half of the daylight hours we miss at the time of the <\/span>Winter Solstice <\/b>in December.\u00a0 By the date of the <\/span>Summer Solstice <\/b>in June, the axis will be tilted fully toward the Sun as we begin summer in the northern hemisphere.\u00a0 The Northern Pole of the Earth will experience 24 hours of daylight during the solstice while the Great Lakes Region will see approximately 17 hours of daylight and 7 hours of darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Compiled by Ken Raisanen of WOAS-FM – information provided by <\/span>Abrams Planetarium Sky Calendar<\/span><\/i>, Michigan State University.\u00a0 More information and subscription information can be found on\u00a0 their website at <\/span>http:\/\/abramsplanetarium.org\/<\/span><\/span><\/a>skycalendar\/ or on Twitter at <\/span>http:\/\/twitter.com\/AbramsSkyNotes<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Yearly subscriptions cost $12 and can be started anytime.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Slash and Myles Kennedy do an acoustic version of\u00a0Starlight<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If evening planetary gazing is your thing, March is going to be a big disappointment to you.\u00a0 There are no naked eye planets visible in the evening sky this month.\u00a0 Uranus will be in the western sky and will be visible with binoculars or a small telescope about an hour after sunset.\u00a0 If the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2441,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions\/2441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}