{"id":386,"date":"2019-02-25T21:30:37","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T21:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=386"},"modified":"2019-02-25T02:19:54","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T02:19:54","slug":"march-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/march-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"March 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mercury begins our nightly parade of planets near the easternmost fish head of Pisces at the start of March. The messenger planet sinks into the sunset fast though. On the 7th<\/sup>, northern hemisphere observers will find it barely above the horizon with a slim crescent moon to the left. The planet is at inferior conjunction on the 15th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mars is higher in the west during the evening gliding eastward between Cetus the whale\u2019s head and Aries. The moon passes by on the 11th<\/sup>. Toward the end of the month, the red planet is getting close to the Pleiades. It will pass between the Pleiades and the Hyades in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Venus, Saturn, the moon, and Jupiter are part of a morning lineup that\u2019s been fun to watch since January. Jupiter and Saturn aren\u2019t moving much during March. Venus is moving quickly eastward across the stars of Capricorn and then Aquarius. In the last few days of the month, you may notice Mercury has reappeared in the morning sky left of Venus. Start watching them now and enjoy a prolonged pairing in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earth and Mars have equinoxes just days apart this month. Both are northward equinoxes. We don\u2019t usually specify the direction the sun appears to be moving when describing the equinox on Earth. Since it is tied to our calendar, to call it the March equinox is enough. When we aren\u2019t worried about being misunderstood by folks far away in another hemisphere, we in the north call it the spring equinox. Earth\u2019s happens on the 20th<\/sup> at 21:59 UTC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For Mars, a revolution around the sun is a little less than one year, eleven months as we reckon on Earth. So the Martian equinox doesn\u2019t line up with our calendar. We must specify which equinox is happening on the red planet. The sun crosses the planet\u2019s equator going north on March 23rd<\/sup> at 11:33 UTC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The moon starts the month at southern lunistice 21.6\u00b0 from the equator. It crosses the equator on the 8th<\/sup>, reaches northern lunistice on the 15th<\/sup> at 21.8\u00b0, and then goes south again on the 21st<\/sup>. A second southern lunistice is on the 28th<\/sup> at 21.9\u00b0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunar apogee this month is on the 4th<\/sup> at 406,300 km. Perigee is on the 19th<\/sup> at 359,300 km.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New moon is on the 6th<\/sup>, first quarter on the 14th<\/sup>, full moon on the 21st<\/sup>, and last quarter on the 28th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some notable conjunctions this month<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st<\/sup> Saturn 0.3\u00b0 from the moon. Viewers in the western Pacific will see an occultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2nd<\/sup> Venus 1.2\u00b0 from the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6th<\/sup> Vesta 0.5\u00b0 from the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7th<\/sup> Neptune 1.0\u00b0 from the sun<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7th<\/sup> Mercury 7.9\u00b0 from the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10th<\/sup> Uranus 4.6\u00b0 from the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11th<\/sup> Mars 5.5\u00b0 from the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13th<\/sup> Moon 1.9\u00b0 from Aldebaran<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15th<\/sup> Mercury 3.5\u00b0 from the sun. This is an inferior conjunction (the planet is between Earth and the sun).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19th<\/sup> Moon 2.5\u00b0 from Regulus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26th<\/sup> Ceres 2.7\u00b0 from the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27th<\/sup> Jupiter 1.9\u00b0 from the moon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29th<\/sup>\u00a0Saturn 0.1\u00b0 from the moon. Viewers in the southern Atlantic will see an occultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Visibility map for the lunar occultation of Saturn on March 1. Spots in the western Pacific will see it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Visibility map for the lunar occultation of Saturn on March 29. Places in the south Atlantic will get to see it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

None of our major planets are at aphelion, perihelion, greatest elongation, or opposition this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
An asteroid named Antoku occults a 4th magnitude star on March 10. This map shows where the event is to be visible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
An asteroid named Soyuz-Apollo occults a 4th magnitude star on March 10. This visibility map shows where it can be seen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mercury begins our nightly parade of planets near the easternmost fish head of Pisces at the start of March. The messenger planet sinks into the sunset fast though. On the 7th, northern hemisphere observers will find it barely above the horizon with a slim crescent moon to the left. The planet is at inferior conjunction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}