{"id":777,"date":"2022-02-27T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/?p=777"},"modified":"2022-02-27T00:27:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T00:27:13","slug":"march-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/march-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"March 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All the naked eye planet\nwatching this month is in the morning. A waxing crescent moon rises\ninto the evening through Pisces early in the month. It’ll be near\nUranus on the 6th<\/sup>.\nSee the moon passing between the Pleiades and the Hyades on the\nevening of the 8th<\/sup>.\nOrion is high in the sky slightly west of the meridian in early\nevening, followed closely by Canis Major.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Animated
Animated image showing Mars, Venus, Saturn, and Mercury in the morning sky in March 2022. The view is from near the equator.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The moon is at first quarter on\nthe 10th<\/sup>.\nIt’s at apogee on the same day, 404,400 km from Earth. Lunistice\nfollows on the 12th<\/sup>\nat 26.7\u00b0 north. A waxing gibbous moon passes near Pollux on the\n13th<\/sup>.\nThe moon is approaching full when it passes by Regulus on the 16th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full phase is two nights later\nwhen the moon is near Porrima in Virgo. Some sky watchers get to see\nthe full moon pass in front of the star. That’s on the night of the\n18th<\/sup>\nto 19th<\/sup>.\nVisibility is from most of Canada, the northeastern contintental\nUnited States, Greenland, Iceland, and the northern Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Visibility
Visibility map for occultation of Porrima by the moon on March 19<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The moon passes north of Spica\nthe next night. It’s almost at last quarter when it passes near\nAntares on the morning of the 23rd<\/sup>.\nThe moon’s at perigee the same day at 369,700 km distance. And it’s\nin the teapot lid of Sagittarius at last quarter on the 25th<\/sup>.\nSouthern lunistice at 26.8\u00b0 is also on the 25th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 27th<\/sup>,\n28th<\/sup>,\nand 29th<\/sup>,\nthe moon is a waning crescent passing through the morning planet\ncluster. This will be a wondrous sight, especially for people close\nto the equator and south of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The morning planet watching\nstarts with Venus and Mars moving side by side and getting closer.\nThey’re 3.9\u00b0 on the 16th<\/sup>.\nAs these two planets move into Capricornus, the constellation rises\nearlier. People watching from the middle and high latitudes of the\nnorthern hemisphere get to see Saturn coming along for the ride into\nvisibility. Mercury starts the month near the ringed planet, but\nit’ll be no easy catch from those latitudes. Sky watchers there get\nto see a triangle of Mars, Venus, and Saturn joined by the moon late\nin March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most spectular views will\nbe from farther south. For viewers there, the month starts with a\nwaning crescent moon below Saturn and Mercury. The two planets are\nclosest, 0.7\u00b0 apart, on the 2nd<\/sup>.\nMercury drops below the ringed planet while Venus and Mars sink to\nmeet it. Follow Mercury as long as you can this month and you may see\nit close to Jupiter on the 21st<\/sup>.\nThey’ll be 1.2\u00b0 apart. They’ll be in the glow of the soon-to-rise\nsun, so you may need binoculars to pick them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Venus continues on its way\nthrough Capricornus and will be on one side of Saturn with the moon\non the other on the 28th<\/sup>.\nSaturn and Venus are closest, at 2.1\u00b0, on the 29th<\/sup>.\nAn even thinner crescent moon passes by Jupiter on the 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Briefly, all four of these planets\nwill be in the boundaries of Capricornus next week. Those are the\nboundaries recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Venus\ncrosses the line from Sagittarius to Capricornus at about 1 hour UT\non the 7th<\/sup>. Mars, Saturn, and Mercury are already there.\nMercury crosses the boundary to Aquarius at about 4 hours on the 8th<\/sup>.\nOf course, you don’t see the boundary lines in the sky. You can just\nenjoy knowing the planets are within them. For South America, this\nwill be on Monday morning. Africa gets the view Monday and Tuesday.\nFor Australia and Polynesia, it’s on Tuesday. Again, that’s next\nweek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The morning planet watching stays\nexciting in April and more of the northern hemisphere gets to see it\nthen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The March equinox is on the 20th<\/sup>\nat 15:34 UT. Venus is at greatest elongation on the 20th<\/sup>.\nIt’s 46.6\u00b0 west of the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All the naked eye planet watching this month is in the morning. A waxing crescent moon rises into the evening through Pisces early in the month. It’ll be near Uranus on the 6th. See the moon passing between the Pleiades and the Hyades on the evening of the 8th. Orion is high in the sky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-61"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","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=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/monthly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}