March is the last full month to enjoy the full compliment of winter constellations, at least the best ones. Orion the Hunter is still the main attraction in the evening. As darkness sets in later in the evening, the constellation is about halfway up in the southwestern sky, looking very much like a giant hourglass. Orion is one of the few constellations that doesn’t make you stretch your imagination too far. It does kind of look like a hunter, or at least a big human being, possibly on steroids. Everybody has seen the three bright stars in a row that make up Orion’s belt, but the biggest shiners are the stars Rigel and Betelgeuse, at Orion’s knee and armpit respectively.
Orion has lots of celestial friends with him in the southern heavens, a cast that includes Taurus the Bull, located to the upper right of Orion. It looks like a little arrow, with the moderately bright star Aldebaran as the angry eye of the bull. Taurus’ best treasure, though, is the Pleiades star cluster that looks like a mini-dipper, made up of hundreds of stars around 100 million years old and about 410 light-years away. It’s one of the best things you can see in the winter sky.
Orion also travels through the heavens with the constellations Auriga the Goat Farmer; Gemini the Twins; and Canis Major and Minor, Orion’s big and little hunting dogs. This isn’t exactly last call, but after this month, Orion and his gang will start their gradual slide toward the western horizon. You absolutely owe it to yourself to get out in the dark countryside to see the best of the winter sky. It’ll take your breath away.
In the southeastern sky you’ll want to take a look at Saturn. It’s the brightest starlike object in that part of the sky, parked just to the right of a backward question mark of stars more formally known as the constellation Leo the Lion. Leo’s brightest star Regulus is at the bottom of the celestial query. Saturn is a little less than 800 million miles from our back yards this month, not as close as it was in February but still a very worthy telescope target. As I told you last month in this column, do whatever you can to observe Saturn through a telescope. If you don’t have a telescope, borrow one!
Even through the smallest scope, you should see Saturn’s ring system clearly, and if your scope is powerful enough you’ll see some of Saturn’s many moons. Most telescopes can resolve Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The later at night you can look at Saturn, the better. When it’s high in the sky, between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., you’ll be able to see the planet, with the least amount of Earth’s blurring atmosphere in the way. Also take extended looks at the planet through the scope. The longer you look, the clearer you’ll see it, especially if there isn’t too much turbulence high in the atmosphere. That can vary literally from second to second, so the longer you look at Saturn through the scope, the better chance you’ll have to catch what astronomers call “good seeing” windows.
The other major planet to see this month is Venus, shining very brightly in the west-southwestern sky, popping out toward the end of evening twilight and setting about 8 p.m. It’s the brightest starlike object in the sky, and unlike Saturn, it’s pretty boring to see through a telescope. It’s completely surrounded by a thick shroud of poisonous clouds.
The moon may interfere a bit with your viewing this week, casting a lot of unwanted light into the heavens. It’s just past the full stage and is still pretty bright, but as the week goes on it will rise later and later in the evening and will “shrink” to a half moon.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the new book “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and on his Web site, www.lynchandthestars.com.
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