March Night Sky
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
March Night Sky Orion The Great Hunter is beginning to lose it’s prime position in the southern sky as we move into March and onto April. Leo the lion now shows off it’s brilliance as it crosses the night sky rising before darkness and then setting soon after 5 am. February witnessed one of the great events of the year as Pluto the outer-most planet became the outer-most planet. Strange? Well, when Pluto was discovered (or at least calculated) it was known as having an orbit which passed inside the orbit of Neptune. At this time the planet was still inside the orbit of Neptune so up until February the outer planet was not in fact the outer planet. This means that up until very recently the mnemonic used to remember the order of the planets was wrong, it should have read as: My Very Easy Method Just So Useful Planets Naming. March sees yet another ‘blue moon’, the second this year, having two in a year will not happen until 2018 so enjoy it.
Leo Leo is one of the great ancient constellations, in Greek mythology Hercules killed the lion as a part of his 12 labours. There is one star of real interest however which is Gamma Leonis which is in fact a Binary star. A binary star is two stars which orbit each other around a common point in space. As seen from Earth the stars appear to eclipse each other as they orbit which has the effect of changing the brightness of the star seen. The period (time of rotation) for Gamma Leonis is 619 years. This can be viewed with the aid of a small telescope. If they are ‘side by side’ then the brightness will be increased, but when one is eclipsed the magnitude of the star decreases. Over half the stars recorded are in fact Binary stars.
Eclipse Update It is now under 6 months to go until the eclipse of the sun occurs over our small island. This means that the night sky that we are seeing now will be similar to that which there will be on the morning of the eclipse. However in Cheltenham it will only be around 97% obscured which means it won’t be safe to look directly at it (unless Solar Eclipse Viewers are used). Obviously the best place to observe this spectacular event in along the line of totality. This region is only about a hundred miles across and just clips England through Devon and Cornwall so here would be the preferred place to stay. Well this it just what all the hotels in these areas thought too and so are charging astronomical prices. My advice is go and camp instead (campsites shouldn’t charge too much), or go to the continent where the chances of clear skies are better and there is more room. Plus some countries don’t seem to be to excited about it.
Leo Leo is one of the great ancient constellations, in Greek mythology Hercules killed the lion as a part of his 12 labours. There is one star of real interest however which is Gamma Leonis which is in fact a Binary star. A binary star is two stars which orbit each other around a common point in space. As seen from Earth the stars appear to eclipse each other as they orbit which has the effect of changing the brightness of the star seen. The period (time of rotation) for Gamma Leonis is 619 years. This can be viewed with the aid of a small telescope. If they are ‘side by side’ then the brightness will be increased, but when one is eclipsed the magnitude of the star decreases. Over half the stars recorded are in fact Binary stars.
Eclipse Update It is now under 6 months to go until the eclipse of the sun occurs over our small island. This means that the night sky that we are seeing now will be similar to that which there will be on the morning of the eclipse. However in Cheltenham it will only be around 97% obscured which means it won’t be safe to look directly at it (unless Solar Eclipse Viewers are used). Obviously the best place to observe this spectacular event in along the line of totality. This region is only about a hundred miles across and just clips England through Devon and Cornwall so here would be the preferred place to stay. Well this it just what all the hotels in these areas thought too and so are charging astronomical prices. My advice is go and camp instead (campsites shouldn’t charge too much), or go to the continent where the chances of clear skies are better and there is more room. Plus some countries don’t seem to be to excited about it.
