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Wednesday 29 February 2012

OK, March 2012. What can we expect to see?

 Fantastic question. And lets starts right at the beginning. Planets.

  The starting week of march this year will be the best opportunity to see all 5 of the planets closest to the Earth. Jupiter, Venus and Mercury light up the Western horizon from sunset. The easiest way of locating them is by looking towards the moon, and then drawing a diagonal line to the brightest stars between it and the horizon. You should notice that these stars do not twinkle. This is because they are the aforementioned planets. Jupiter is highest in the sky, followed my Venus, and finally mercury.

    Over to the Eastern horizon, and we see the Red Planet, Mars and from midnight each night, Saturn rises in the East. If you have a telescope, I would definitely suggest trying to find Jupiter or Saturn in it, they are truly amazing views.
   Don't have a telescope? Why not focus a pair on binoculars upon the moon? Its always on of the most majestic objects in our sky,  look to the terminator (where the dark and light areas of the moon meet) and see some incredible detail on the craters that you'll see there.

  There are no meteor showers due this month, but never fear, there will be 2 in April to compensate!!

  Happy Planet gazing everyone!

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