Quick guide to cool astronomy pictures.

SOLAR SYSTEM

STAR CLUSTERS

NEBULAE

GALAXIES

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Monthly Astronomy Viewing Guide - March 2008

Be sure to scroll all the way down to see what is visible this month.

March 2008 Night Sky at a Glance
See the planets, comets, asteroids, and other interested solar system and deep sky objects that are up this month.

Planets Up and Visible This Month

Planets at a glance

Early Evening
Mars
Saturn

Midnight
Mars
Saturn

Early morning
Venus
Jupiter
Mercury

Planets in Detail

	Mercury	Mercury is tough to see this month. It will be up shortly before the Sun at the beginning of the month and will definitely be invisible by the end of the month due to the Sun's glow.
	Venus	As always, Venus is shining bright, however, it will be rising shortly before the Sun all month. It's position will be just above the horizon, but will be visible. It will be located closely to Mercury throughout the month. You have a better chance of seeing Venus than Mercury due to its intense brightness.
	Mars	Mars is still visible this month, but its apparent size has gotten much smaller, in fact, too small to see any surface detail in most telescopes by the end of the month. Even at the beginning of the month when Mars appears somewhat bigger, it will be tough. It is still bright and rules the early evening sky. By the end of March, it will dim to a magnitude 0.8. It will be straight up when the Sun sets most of the month.
	Jupiter	Jupiter will be rising at about 4:00 AM on March 1st and about 2:30 AM by the end of the month. It will still be too low on the horizon to get a great view of the surface detail. This is one the best planets to view because of its large apparent size It will look about 5 times the size of Mars.
	Saturn	Saturn is still dominating the sky. It will be rising at approximately 8:00 PM at the beginning of the month and about 7:00 PM by the end . It will be visible through most of the night. As always, Saturn is a sight to behold. Saturn's rings will be "disappearing" by year's end due to the angel from Earth, so see them while you can!
	Uranus	Uranus is rising and setting with Sun all month, so forget about seeing it.
	Neptune	Neptune will be rising shortly before the Sun, but will be tough to see due to the fact that it is rather dim and will more than likely be lost in the Sun's glow.
	Pluto	Pluto will be rising at about 2:30 AM at the beginning of March and about 1:00 AM by the end of the month. To view Pluto, you need very dark skies, and a large scope. They say an 8" will do it, but its tough in a telescope that small.

List of Visible Comets For This Month

	*Click a comet name below for a list of coordinates throughout the month.*
Comet 17P Holmes	This comet has gotten so large and diffuse that it has become very difficult to view even in dark skies. In light polluted skies, you can forget about it. It is also setting around midnight.
Comet 46P Wirtanen	Comet 46P Wirtanen is going to be a great comet to view this month. It will be setting around midnight with Comet Holmes.

Meteor Showers

y-Normids

The y-Normids meteor shower is active the whole month of March, but peaks on March 13th. It is visible through the Southern Hemisphere, but will only be visible to those in the southern latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. That being said, it is not really a great shower and may not even be detectable apart from the usual background meteor rate. Try to look on March 13 from dark skies and you might see 3 to 4 per hour. Hardly an impressive rate. Even the seasoned meteor shower observer will have a hard time with this one.

This Month's Moon Phases

March 2008

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

7
NM

14
FQ

21
FM

29
LQ