Observing Calendar – March 9th to April 12th 2010 by Steve Woodbridge

Sky Diary — By Danny Thomas on March 8, 2010 at 7:14 pm

Observing Calendar – March 9th to April 12th 2010

(all times Local Time)

Date
March 15^th	New Moon.
March 16^th	Mars sets at dawn. Still very prominent in the evening sky in Cancer, it is now starting to fade and only magnitude -0.2. It also shrinking: 10.7” now and only 8.5” at the end of the period. It is your last chance for 2 years to catch some of its markings unless you have a large telescope. The brightest marking, Syrtis Major, is on the meridian at 8pm tonight, and then 40 minutes later each night.
March 19^th	Uranus in conjunction with the Sun. Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune are effectively invisible this month.
March 21^st	Moon sets after midnight.
March 22^nd	Saturn at opposition in Virgo. It’s magnitude is +0.5 (so don’t confuse it with the star Spica) and it size 19.5”(the rings stretch out to 44.3”. Can you spot the opposition effect, when the rings become brighter on the actual day of opposition because of direct reflection back of the sun’s rays from the ring particles? This will help you see them at the moment as they have a narrow tilt of 3.2°.
March 28^th	British Summer Time starts.
March 30^th	Full Moon.
April 2^nd	Moon rises after midnight, giving dark (although increasingly shorter) evening skies.
April 4^th	Comet Wild anticipated at maximum brightness. On the edge of Virgo at Right Ascension 14 hrs 12 mins and Declination -5, it should be a binocular object at magnitude 8.5.
April 4^th	Denebola (Beta Leonis) culminates at midnight. This tail star of the Lion was once ranked as 1^st magnitude. Has it faded? It may be worth checking to see if there is any variability – the Society for Popular Astronomy has some charts I believe. Denebola marks the start of the area of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies – there are 21 galaxies brighter than magnitude 10.2, 15 of them Messier objects. As the next few weeks are the only times they are reasonably high in our evening skies, how about a small project. I am interested in knowing which of the galaxies showing interesting features and shape in a small telescope – any recommendations please.
April 8^th	Mercury at greatest Eastern elongation. Mercury is well placed in the evening sky – it is its best evening apparition of the year. Setting around 1¾ hours after sunset, it can be found in Aries – at magnitude +0.1. About 5º away and much brighter at magnitude -3.8, is Venus. Are there possibility of a nice wide-angle image here?