What’s Up in the Night Sky? March 2015

Fred Barrett | Mar 04, 2015

The one thing about January and February observing is that when you have a crystal clear sky, the temperature is usually well into the negative teens. There have been more than a few nights like that lately. The problem with winter observing is that the cold is very hard on equipment and gloveless fingers! It’s pretty hard adjusting equipment with winter gloves on! The electronics and mechanical gears used to control telescope movement can fail, be damaged or act erratically in very cold weather.

Binoculars and simple telescopes perform fairly well but frost can form on the primary mirror or your body heat can cloud the eyepiece if you’re not careful. A hairdryer set at medium can cure some of those problems but don’t bring the hairdryer too close to the glass. There are also commercial warmers available to keep optics clear.

In order to show that I had the right stuff, I went out a few times in February and was rewarded with some fine evenings. My rule of thumb is that I rarely observe below about -10 degrees Celsius. Very cold observing often means I will spend more time fixing problems than actually observing! A close friend called me early in February and asked if she could come out to my observatory. She just had to see Comet Lovejoy through my telescope! A beautiful clear -10 degree night occurred a few days later and out she came dressed all nice and warm. That night we toured Jupiter and its moons, the Orion nebula and finished off with some wonderful views of Comet Lovejoy. Comet Lovejoy can still be found just past the top of the constellation Andromeda.

I was fascinated to read in a recent news report that about 70,000 years ago a star passed through the outer region of the Oort cloud, a halo of trillions of comets and debris that surrounds the outer regions of our solar system. It passed within 0.8 light years or about 52,000 AU’s. An AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. At its closest it would have been 50 times fainter than what can be made out by the naked eye - our distant ancestors wouldn’t have made out anything unusual. It’s not likely that it disturbed the Oort cloud very much. It has been nicknamed Scholz’s star after its discoverer and is a low mass red dwarf star with about 8 % of the mass of the Sun. It has a brown dwarf binary companion about 6 % of the mass of the Sun. A brown dwarf is considered a failed star since it doesn’t have enough mass to fuse hydrogen. Even so, it is still much larger than Jupiter, which has a mass of about 0.1 % that of the Sun. Scholz’s star is now about 20 light years away and moving at a good clip directly away from the Sun! Who knows what else lurks out there on an intercept course with our solar system!

Another item that caught my eye has to do with the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The Dawn spacecraft is very near Ceres and is about to be placed in orbit around the planet. Ceres is a rock and ice object about 950 kilometers in diameter and is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. A recent photo shows two objects that look like two very bright lights in the middle of a huge impact crater. It’s as if two spotlights were pointed directly at us. We’ll have to wait until Dawn is in orbit around Ceres and much closer in order to solve this mystery!

Venus is very prominent in the west at magnitude -4.0. It appears slightly higher each night as the time between its setting in the west and sunset increases. Mars is lower at sunset as the month progresses and sets only an hour after the Sun by month’s end. On March 7th, you can enjoy a nice view of Mars below Venus. Between March 21st and 23rd, the Moon passes by the left side of Venus and Mars. On the 21st, Mars is just off the top tip of the crescent Moon and on the 22nd , the Moon is 4 degrees from Venus. Saturn rises about midnight during March and is highest at twilight. Saturn is to the right and slightly below the gibbous Moon on the 12th. Jupiter is by far the brightest object in the sky. At sunset, it is midway up the eastern sky and is at its highest point in the south between 10 and 11 pm. On the 2nd, Jupiter is close on the left of the Moon in the east.

The full Moon this month is on the 5th. It is called the Full Worm Moon. At this time the ground warms up and worm castings appear along with robins. This year I think the worms will be frozen solid in their dens and the robins will still be sunning themselves on the beaches down south! Northern tribes called this the Crow Moon because the noisy raucous crows were announcing the end of winter or more likely staking territory for mating season. It is also known as the Full Sap Moon because it’s the time to collect sap to boil down to maple syrup.

March 8th marks the start of daylight savings time - Spring ahead, Fall back!

The Zodiacal light is prominent for the next 2 weeks in the west about 1 ½ hours after sunset. Watch for a left sloping pyramid of faint light rising from the horizon. A dark sky is definitely a must have!

The Vernal or Spring Equinox occurs at 6:45 pm on March 20th. From the temperatures we have been having, I think spring has been called off! A very young crescent Moon can be seen in the east on this date – a real challenge.

Leonard Nemoy, Dr. Spock in Star Trek, has passed away. I met him years ago and he stirred my imagination to explore where no one has gone before.

You may contact Fred Garrett through this paper or email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Beginner’s Observer’s Guide by Leo Enright is available at the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy or by contacting the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada www.rasc.ca/publications, subscriptions for our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine, Sky News, are also available from RASC..