{"id":929,"date":"2013-02-24T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=929"},"modified":"2013-02-02T19:58:31","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T19:58:31","slug":"astronomy-events-of-march-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/24\/astronomy-events-of-march-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomy events of March 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00a1SkyCaramba! Weekly astronomy blog for the week ending March 2, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Jupiter is an evening object. It will move eastward in the sky close to the Hyades all month. This month\u2019s first quarter moon comes especially close on the 17<sup>th<\/sup>. It will pass between Jupiter and Aldebaran.<\/p>\n<p>Saturn rises in mid-evening. A waning gibbous moon is near Spica on the morning of the 1<sup>st<\/sup> and near the ringed planet in the evening. Saturn is moving very slowly westward just west of Libra.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/24\/astronomy-events-of-march-2013\/earth-march-2013-equinox-small\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-931\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-931\" title=\"Earth March 2013 equinox small\" src=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Earth-March-2013-equinox-small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>For some viewers, the moon won\u2019t just be near Spica on the 1<sup>st<\/sup>. It will cover the star. This occultation will be visible from most of South America, the Central American Pacific coast, and parts of the Pacific Ocean from the Albatross Plateau to the Chile Trench.<\/p>\n<p>The moon will hide Spica again on the 28<sup>th<\/sup>. Viewers in southeast China to Malaysia to the Philippines, to the far northern reaches of Australia will be able to see it. So will many inhabitants of islands in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n<p>Mercury appears in the morning sky after emerging from inferior conjunction on the 4<sup>th<\/sup>. Mercury will be 4.8\u00b0 north of Venus on the 7<sup>th<\/sup>. It\u2019ll be too close to the sun to see safely, but try finding it 2\u00b0 south of a waning crescent moon on the 10<sup>th<\/sup>. Venus will be 5.9\u00b0 south of the moon a little later the same day.<\/p>\n<p>Venus is a morning object most of the month but is disappearing into the solar glare. The planet heads into conjunction with the sun on the 25<sup>th<\/sup>. Meanwhile, Mars is an evening object also heading toward the sun. But the red planet won\u2019t reach solar conjunction this month. Venus, moving much faster, will join Mars in a pairing in April.<\/p>\n<p>The moon will be at its farthest north on the 18<sup>th<\/sup>, its farthest away from Earth on the 19<sup>th<\/sup>, and at first quarter phase also on the 19<sup>th<\/sup>. Then, on the 20<sup>th<\/sup>, Earth will be at equinox at 11:02 UT.<\/p>\n<p>One year and one day after its discovery, Comet C\/2012 F6 Lemmon will reach perihelion on the 24<sup>th<\/sup>. It will be 0.731 astronomical units (Earth-Sun distances) from the sun. However, it will be too close to the sun as seen from Earth to safely view the comet. The best chances are in the weeks before and after.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to predict how bright a comet will be, so pay attention to news sources that report on comets. Some astronomers believe it will be easy to spot with binoculars or even the naked eye. In March, Comet Lemmon is a southern hemisphere object. It will be visible to northerners in April and May. It will likely be dimming then, on its way from the inner parts of the solar system not to return this way for more than 11,000 years.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aerith.net\/comet\/catalog\/2012F6\/2012F6.html\">http:\/\/www.aerith.net\/comet\/catalog\/2012F6\/2012F6.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/68206208@N03\/8430455591\/\">http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/68206208@N03\/8430455591\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a1SkyCaramba! Weekly astronomy blog for the week ending March 2, 2013 Jupiter is an evening object. It will move eastward in the sky close to the Hyades all month. This month\u2019s first quarter moon comes especially close on the 17th. It will pass between Jupiter and Aldebaran. Saturn rises in mid-evening. A waning gibbous moon &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/24\/astronomy-events-of-march-2013\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Astronomy events of March 2013<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[321,342,29,102,5,25,4,142,614,78,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}