March Skies
Join the world wide survey of light pollution, GLOBE at Night. Get the Kids involved!Useful info for visitors from New Zealand, Southern India and Asia, South Africa and South America.
March 1-3; Venus and Mercury very close. March 3, Jupiter near Crescent Moon. March 6, Venus and Mercury near Crescent Moon. March 15, Mars near Moon. March 19; Moon very near Saturn and Regulus. March 24-26; Venus and Mercury very close. March 28; Venus, Mercury, Phi Aquarii, and Uranus within a circle 4 fingers wide.
Looking up at the stars is still a rewarding pursuit, despite the increasing light pollution in our major cities. The southern sky is full of interesting objects, many of which go unseen in the northern hemisphere. All you need for a good nights viewing is yourself, a good idea of where south and east are, and your hands. Optional extras are a small pair of binoculars, a torch with red cellophane taped over the business end and a note book. A great many tips for backyard astronomy may be found here, although many of them are more relevant to the northern hemisphere. A general article on amateur astronomy from New Scientist is here (May require subscription otherwise see the TASS site.).This page is designed to give people a simple guide to the naked eye sky. In the descriptions of planet and star positions, distances in the sky are given as "fingers width" and "hand span". This is the width of your hand (with all the fingers together as in making a "stop" sign, not bunched as a fist) or finger when extended a full arms length from you.
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Autumn has arrived again, and the nights are getting longer. People are dusting off the various spheriods of their preferred football code. Anyone at night time practice can take some time off to stare up at the Autumn skies and see the Milky Way, and the constelations of Carina, Puppis and Vela, blaze across our night sky. Orion the Hunter and his dog Canis major are also magnificent. You don't have to practice a football code to look at the stars, of course. Nights are often cool now, so don't forget a footy jumper before doing any extended star watching.
While these pages are primarily intended for the use of people observing in Australia, non-Australian Southern Hemisphere observers will find most of the information here applies to them. The star information will be most helpful, when you correct your location for latitude (see the Stars section for appropriate location information). Most Moon phase, planet, comet and asteroid information will be very similar to what will be seen in New Zealand, South Africa and South America. Countries close to the equator (eg Indonesia) will have somewhat different southern and northern views, but the eastern and western views should be similar enough to get a good idea of what is going on.Occultations, eclipses and aurora are highly location dependent, and it would be best to get a local almanac for these events. If there is no local almanac available, email me and I might be able to help you. I do try and give general info for occultations and eclipses in the Oceania area of the Southern Hemisphere.
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Aurora Alert UPDATED 21/01/08: Sunspot cycle 24 has offically started. We are still in Solar Minimum, but expect things to begin to pick up aurora-wise towards the end of the year.Auroral images and description from past geomagnetic storms are now at the auroral image web page.
While we are at solar minimum, it will still be possible to see the occasional aurora. Tasmania, King Island and Southern Victoria are the most likely places to see aurora. However, on August 24, 2005 there was a massive auroral storm seen as far as northern NSW. Naturally, the best views of any aurora will be away from the city and bright lights. Aurora occur when charged particles from the solar wind enter earths outer atmosphere and interact with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms producing eerie displays of coloured lights. During solar maximum, which occurs every 11 years, the number and speed of the particles are higher, allowing them to penetrate the Earth's magnetic field at lower latitudes than normal. Observers in Tasmania are likely to see green glows or sheets of light in the southern sky. Observers in Southern Victoria are more likely to see a red glow in the southern sky, although more spectacular displays are possible.
The Astronomical Society of Tasmania has a webpage devoted to this phenomenon. The Australian IPS radio and space services covers Aurora and related phenomena in very great detail (too much if you don't know much about them) but has a nice education page. Flinders Uni also has real time magnetometer readings, however, this will probably not mean much to most people.
Aurora will generally follow solar flares by about 2 days, and a number of instruments are watching the sun for these outbursts. The solar mimiumin should occur in 2006, and sunspot numbers, and hence flare rates are dropping considerably, sometimes months will go by without an alert, then you have three in a week. The space weather site at http://www.spaceweather.com gives notice of when solar winds likely to cause aurora will arrive. Alternatively, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject and I will send you an email alert of any likely auroral event (or other interesting sky phenomena). However, even a strong solar flare is no guarantee that you will be able to see aurora, but it does increase the probability.
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Email alerts I try to update this page fairly regularly outside of the monthly postings. However sometimes things happen which I can't get in fast enough, or you forget to mark your calendar. If you would like to be alerted to or reminded of interesting astronomical or sky phenomena, send an email to reynella@mira.net with "subscribe aurora alert" as the subject. This is the old aurora alert list, but with auroras rare as we climb out solar minimum (except for the occasional humdinger, like the August 2005 auroral event), it is doing double duty. Astroblog will have images when possible of these events soon after.
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Coming events25 January 2008; Occulatation of Regulus
31 January 2008; Venus and Jupiter close
1-2 February 2008, Venus and Jupiter very close
2 February 2008, Occultation of Antares
7 February 2008, Partial Solar Eclipse
24 February 2008, Opposition of Saturn
6 March 2008, Venus, Mercury and Moon very close
30 April 2008, Occultation of Neptune (Northern Australia)
1 May 2008, Saturn and Regulus close.
6 May 2008 Eta Aquarid meter shower
9 June 2008, Saturn and Moon close to Regulus.
1 July 2008, Mars and Regulus very close together, Saturn nearby.
6 July 2008, Good alignment of Mars, Regulus, Saturn and Moon.
9 July 2008, Opposition of Jupiter.
14 July, Occultation of Antares.
10-21 August 2008, Venus, Mercury and Saturn close together
17 August 2008, Partial Lunar Eclipse
1-18 September 2008, Mercury, Mars and Venus close together.
12 September 2008, Mars and Venus very close together.
4 October 2008, Occultation of Antares (WA).
1 December 2008, Very close meeting of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon.
29th December 2008, Occultation of Jupiter by Moon, Mercury nearby.
Out in SpaceCassini has a stunning image of the Moons Janus and Dione.
The NASA Mars rovers SPIRT and OPPORTUNITY are preparing for the Martian winter. OPPORTUNITY has found evidence of ancient salty seas.
Mars Express is producing Tstunning 3D maps of Mars.
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The Moon:
Current Phase of the Moon.
This is a JavaScript applet kindly supplied by Darren Osbourne. It shows the Moon as Southern Hemisphere viewers see it, and is upside down from the Northern Hemisphere perspective.
New Moon is on the 9th
First quarter on the 14th
Full moon on the 22nd
Last quarter on the 30th
On the morning of the 3rd the crescent Moon is close to Jupiter. On the morning of the 6th the crescent Moon is close to the pairing of Venus and Mercury. On the evening of the 15th the waxing Moon is close to Mars. On the evening of the 19th the waxing Moon is close to Saturn. On the morning of the 31st the waning Moon is close to Jupiter.
An interactive calendar of the Moon's phases.
A view of the phase of the Moon for any date from 1800 A.D. to 2199, US based, so that the Moon is upside down with respect to us. The image above is from this source.
The phases of the Moon have been linked in the popular imagination to activities as diverse as madness and menstruation. However, careful study has shown that there are no such links. This web page outlines how the Moon is unconnected with a wide range of human activities.
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Planets:Finding planets, even with the directions below, can sometimes be difficult if you are unfamiliar with the sky. However, the Moon is very obvious, and can be a guide to location planets. Not only that, the combination of the Moon and bright planet(s) is often very beautiful. Thus the guide below gives the dates when the planets and the Moon are close together.
The Morning sky facing east in Melbourne on March 6 at 6:00 am AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 6:00 am ACDST Adelaide.
The Evening sky facing north in Melbourne on March 16 at 10 pm AEDST (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00 pm ACDST Adelaide.Mercury is in the morning sky this month. This will be an excellent time to see Mercury in the morning. On the 1st Mercury will be two handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before Sunrise, and a little over a fingerwidth above Venus. Over the next few days Venus and Mercury draw apart. On March 6 Mercury and Venus will be joined by the crescent Moon for a spectacular lineup. Mecury will never be far from Venus this month and the two catch up later in the month, being closest on the 24th and 26th when they are just a fingerwidth apart. At this time they will be two handspans above the eastern horizon half an hour before Sunrise. After this, the two planets separate, but are still easily vsible until the end of the month. Venus is prominent in the early morning skies in March, and has some attractive encounters. Venus starts the month in Capricornius then moves into Aquarius. On March 1, Venus is two handspans above the eastern horizon an hour before Sunrise and is just about a fingerwith from Mercury. The planets then move apart as Venus heads towards the horizon. On March 6h the crescent Moon is above the lineup of Mercury and Venus. Twoards the end of the month Mercury catches up with venus again, and are closest on the 24th an 26th when they are a fingerwidith apart. At this time they will be two handspans above the eastern horizon half an hour before Sunrise. After this, the two planets separate, but are still easily vsible until the end of the month. On March 28 Venus, Mercury, the moderately bright star Phi Aquarii, and Uranus are within a circle 4 fingers wide (you won't actuallty be able to see Uranus, but it will be there).
Earth is at equinox (when day and night are the same lenght) on the 20th.
Mars is fading quickly with opposition well past. However, it still is a very respectable brightness, and is in a beautiful part of the sky. The red stars Betelguese and Alderbaran, together with Mars form a distinct wide, red triangle in the early evening sky. Mars is still an obvious disk in even small telescopes (like my 50 mm refractor), but seeing markings becomes more and more difficult. On the 1st Mars is 4 handspans above the north-western horizon at 10:00 pm daylight saving time, and is a handspan from beta-Taurii (Elnath). By the 15th Mars is still 4 handspans above the northen horizon at 10:00 pm daylight saving time. On the 15th, Mars, the waxing Moon and stars of gemini make an interesting sight. By the end of the month Mars is 3 handspans above the horizon at 10 pm daylight saving time, above the noth-western horizon. Mars starts in Taurus and moves into Gemini. By the end of the Month Mars is very close to the star Mebsuta (less than half a fingerwidth away).
For more details, links and observing hints, see my Mars Opposition page.
Jupiter rises higher in morning sky this month. It is now suitable for making telescopic observations. Following its moons in binoculars or telescopes should be very rewarding (23 March has a nice series of events). On March 1, Jupiter is nearly 6 handspans above the horizon, an hour before sunrise. It is also a fingerwidth from Omicron Sagittarii. On March 3 Jupiter is just 3 fingerwiths from the crescent Moon. With Venus and Mercury below this will be an attractive morning sight. By the 31st Jupiter is 11 handspans above the eastern horizon, and hour before Sunrise. With the waning Moon three fingerwidths away, and the pair of Venus and Mercury below, close to the horizon, this is another attractive sight.
This table was created using The Planets 2.02 a free program available from http://www.cpac.org.uk Times are AEST, subtract 30 minutes for ACST and 2 hours for AWST. Add 1 hour for Daylight saving time. GRS = Great Red Spot. S = Shadow Transit, T = Transit Sat 1 Mar 5:23 Gan: Transit Ends Sun 2 Mar 5:08 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Sun 2 Mar 7:10 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Mon 3 Mar 3:02 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Mon 3 Mar 3:19 Io : Transit Begins ST Mon 3 Mar 4:30 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Mon 3 Mar 5:35 Io : Transit Ends Tue 4 Mar 2:56 Io : Reappears from Occultation Wed 5 Mar 4:41 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Fri 7 Mar 2:27 Eur: Disappears into Eclipse Fri 7 Mar 6:19 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sat 8 Mar 3:49 Cal: Shadow Transit Ends S Sat 8 Mar 5:00 Gan: Shadow Transit Ends Sat 8 Mar 6:35 Gan: Transit Begins T Sun 9 Mar 2:33 Eur: Transit Ends Sun 9 Mar 7:01 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Mon 10 Mar 3:49 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Mon 10 Mar 4:08 Io : Shadow Transit Begins S Mon 10 Mar 5:17 Io : Transit Begins ST Mon 10 Mar 6:23 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Tue 11 Mar 4:53 Io : Reappears from Occultation Wed 12 Mar 5:28 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Fri 14 Mar 5:02 Eur: Disappears into Eclipse Fri 14 Mar 7:07 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sat 15 Mar 2:58 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sat 15 Mar 6:02 Gan: Shadow Transit Begins S Sun 16 Mar 2:32 Eur: Transit Begins ST Sun 16 Mar 2:50 Eur: Shadow Transit Ends T Sun 16 Mar 5:14 Eur: Transit Ends Mon 17 Mar 2:29 Cal: Reappears from Occultation Mon 17 Mar 4:37 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Mon 17 Mar 6:02 Io : Shadow Transit Begins S Mon 17 Mar 7:14 Io : Transit Begins ST Tue 18 Mar 3:23 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Tue 18 Mar 6:50 Io : Reappears from Occultation Wed 19 Mar 2:45 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Wed 19 Mar 3:59 Io : Transit Ends Wed 19 Mar 4:07 Gan: Reappears from Occultation Wed 19 Mar 6:15 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Thu 20 Mar 2:07 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sat 22 Mar 3:46 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sun 23 Mar 2:43 Eur: Shadow Transit Begins S Sun 23 Mar 5:11 Eur: Transit Begins ST Sun 23 Mar 5:24 Eur: Shadow Transit Ends T Mon 24 Mar 5:24 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Tue 25 Mar 2:10 Eur: Reappears from Occultation Tue 25 Mar 5:16 Io : Disappears into Eclipse Tue 25 Mar 7:08 Cal: Transit Begins T Wed 26 Mar 2:24 Io : Shadow Transit Begins S Wed 26 Mar 3:06 Gan: Reappears from Eclipse S Wed 26 Mar 3:40 Io : Transit Begins ST Wed 26 Mar 4:39 Io : Shadow Transit Ends T Wed 26 Mar 5:08 Gan: Disappears into Occultation T Wed 26 Mar 5:56 Io : Transit Ends Wed 26 Mar 7:03 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Thu 27 Mar 2:54 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Thu 27 Mar 3:15 Io : Reappears from Occultation Sat 29 Mar 4:33 GRS: Crosses Central Meridian Sun 30 Mar 5:17 Eur: Shadow Transit Begins S Mon 31 Mar 6:11 GRS: Crosses Central MeridianSaturn is visible in the eastern evening sky. Saturn is past opposition but this month a good time to observe this ringed world in a small telescope. Especially now as you do not have to stay up until midnight to get a good view. Saturns rings are becoming more "edge on", and this makes Satrun a very interesting sight. On March 1st Saturn is 4 handspans abover the north-eastern horizon at 10:00 pm local time. Saturn is also over a handspan to the right (east) of Regulus, the brightest star in Leo. Over the month Saturn will rise progressively earlier, making it more accessible. It will also come closer to Regulus. On March 19, the waxing Moon is close to Saturn making a triangle with Regulus that fits in a circle 3 finergwidths in diameter. This will be a nice sky lineup. On March 31, Saturn is seven handspans above the northern horizon at 10:00 pm local time.
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Starshine 3
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Iridium Flares, the International Space Station and other satellitesSee this amazing site for images of the space station taken through a telescope.
Iridium flares add a bit of spectacle to the night sky. The Iridium satellite network was set up to give global phone coverage, so an Iridium satellite is almost always over head. Occasionally, one of the antenna of the satellites is aligned so that it reflects the sun towards an observer, giving a brilliant flare, often out-shining Venus. However, the visibility of Iridium flares is VERY dependent on observer position, so you need a prediction for your spot within about 30 km. Hence I'm referring you to a web site for predictions rather than doing it myself.
- Heavens above, an excellent site. You need to choose your location or manually enter a longitude and latitude (once done the site remembers this). Predicts Iridium Flare occurrence, and gives the visibility the space shuttle, the International space station and heaps of other satellites. I find this the most useful site.
Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Or type in Your Latitude and Longitude in decimal format eg Darwin is -12.461 130.840 , to find your Lat Long go to this site.
Another site, JPASS, doesn't do Iridium flares, but is very cool and does the International Space Station, and many other satellites. However, although the output is flashy, it's harder to use than heavens above.
- The JPASS site from NASA.
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Meteor showers:
Date Meteor Shower ZHR IlluminationThe figure ZHR is zenithal hourly rate. This is the number of meteors that a single observer would see per hour if the shower's "point of origin", or radiant, were at the zenith and the sky were dark enough for 6.5-magnitude stars to be visible to the naked eye. Illumination gives an idea of how dark the sky is, the lower the figure, the darker the sky.
There are no significant showers this month.
A good page describing meteor watching is at the Sky Publications site.
The Meteor Section of the Astronomical Society of Victoria has some good information on meteor watching too.
Learn how to take a meteor shower photograph.
A Cool Fact about meteor speeds
A good page on detecting meteors using home made radiotelescopes is here.
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Comets:There are no naked eye or binocular Comets visible in the Southern Hemisphere at this time. A list of current comet ephemerides is at the MPC.
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Occultations:No interesting naked-eye occultations this month.
Eclipse:No eclipses visible from Australia this month.
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Stars:
The northern evening sky at 10:00 pm AEDST in Melbourne on March 1 (similar views will be seen from other cities at the equivalent local time eg 10:00pm ACDST Adelaide).
All descriptions here are based on the view from Melbourne at 10.00 pm AEDST (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on 1 March and assumes a fairly level horizon. Starset occurs progressively earlier each day, so these descriptions are valid for 9.00 pm on the 15th and 8.00pm on the 30th. Readers for Central and Western time zones should see roughly the same views at 10.00 pm ACST and 9.00 pm AWST. Corrections for cities other than Melbourne are given below.
How do I find east, west, north and south?
- Readers in Adelaide and Auckland should see roughly the same views at the local equivalent of 10.00 pm AEST.
- Readers in Hobart and Christchurch must decrease descriptions to the North by about five finger widths and increase those to the south by the same amount.
- Readers in Sydney, Fremantle, Perth, Santiago and Capetown should add 3 finger widths to the northern descriptions, and subtract 3 finger widths to the south.
- Readers in Brisbane, Alice Springs Rio deJanerio and Johannesburg must adjust North/South descriptions by two hand spans (and adjust for daylight saving).
- Readers in Darwin, Cairns, Brazilia, La Paz, Lusaka and Lima must adjust North/South descriptions by about 4-5 hand spans (and adjust for daylight saving).
Facing west, Cetus, the whale, lies on the horizon.
The mid sky is dominated by the rambling constellation Erandius, the river, and bright Achenar, alpha Erandius. Achenar is the 9th brightest star in the sky, and is a blue supergiant. Epsilon erandi is notable for being the 10th closest star to our solar system. A sun-like star, epsilon erandi has recently been discovered to have a dust disk which may indicate the presence of planets.
Directly on the eastern horizon is the contstellation of Virgo, this will become clearer during the month.
Directly above Virgo is the long rambling contellation Hydra, and crater the cup with its distinct, but upside down, cup shape.
Five handpsans to left of Virgo, and up by five handspans is Leo, with the sickle of Leo being quite clear. Cancer, which contains the attractive "Beehive" cluster, is 3 handspans above and 5 handspans to the left of the sickle of Leo.
The rectangle of Gemini is 6 handspans to the left of Regulus and two handspans up. The bright stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux form an attarctive pair less than a handspan apart.
The constellations of Tarus, the bull, Orion the hunter and Canis major, Orion's hunting dog are now in the mid-north western sky.
13 handspans from the horizon just under the Zenith and slightly north west is Canis major. The bright white star is Sirius (alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the sky. The constellation of Canis Majoris has a number of open clusters that are well worth exploring with binoculars, Most of these lie two handspand to the right of Sirius, amongst the V shaped group of stars that marks the tail of Canis major. Below Sirius by two hand spans, and one handspan to the right is M47. This cluster is quite nice in binoculars.
Slightly to the right of Sirius and below by about four handspans is the distinctive saucepan shape of Orions belt. The handle of the saucepan is Orions sword, which contains some good naked eye open clusters, and the final star in the handle hosts the famous Orion nebula, which is visible to the naked eye under clear skies. Directly above the handle of the saucepan is bright Rigel (beta Orionis). Directly below the saucepan is the bright redish Betelgeuse (alpha Orinonis), a red giant star.
To the right of Orions belt and below by about 4 handspans is Alderbran (alpha Tauri), another red giant which forms the base of the V shaped group of stars called the Hyades, which forms the head of Taurus. Further to the left again is a faint, but pretty, compact cluster of stars called the Pleiades (the seven sisters). The Pleiades are particularly beautiful through binoculars.
Facing directly north, Auriga, the Charioteer is disapearing below the horizon. Four handspans up is Gemini, with bright Castor and Pollux just to the right.
Facing due South, five handspans to the left and five handspans up are Alpha and beta Centauri the so called "pointers", with Alpha being the yellow star which is closest to the horizon, and Beta the blue white star a handspan above and somewhat to the left. To the left again, and following a line through the "pointers" brings you to the Southern Cross, seven handspans above the horizon at about the 9 o'clock position on a clock. A high definition map of Centaurus and Crux is here.
Just below the Southern Cross is the coal sack. This dark area against the glow of the milky way represents a large dust cloud and is clearly visible in dark skies. The Jewel box in the Cross is a small open cluster just below Beta Crucis, the southernmost bright star in the Cross at the moment. It is quite beautiful, but requires strong binoculars or a small telescope to see properly.
Returning to Alpha Centauri, a handspan from this star to the left and slightly up is a small star, another hand span on is a fuzzy star, this is omega Centauri (5139 on the map), a globular cluster of stars which is quite spectacular in good binoculars, and more spectacular than 47 Tucana (see below). Another handspan to the left and about two fingers down is Centaurus A, a very radio bright galaxy (5128 on the map). You need a dark night and binoculars (at least 10 x 30) to see it, but it is one of the few galaxies you can see in the southern hemisphere (outside of the small and large Mangellanic clouds) without a telescope.
Eight handspans straight up, and eight handspans to the right of due south (or two handspans down and three left of Achenar), is the extended nebulosity of the Small Magellanic cloud, one of the dwarf satellite galaxies to the Milky Way. This feature is best viewed on a dark night, away from the city. In this nebulosity is what looks to be a fuzzy star, this is 47 Tucana, a spectacular globular cluster that is very nice through binoculars.
Up twelve hand spans from due south and five handspans to the right is the Large Magellanic cloud, the largest of the dwarf satellite galaxies. Binoculars will reveal a rather attractive nebula near it, the Tarantula nebula.
Above the south-eastern horzion the constellations Vela, Pupis and Carina are now high enough to appreciate their spectacular collections of nebula and clusters. Puppis is nearly at the zenith. A high definition map of this region is here. Looking almost anywhere in the area streching between Canis major and the Southern Cross will reveal an interesting cluster or star formation. However, the area two handspans up from the Southern Cross and two handspans to the left is particularly rich. Here you will find the "Southern Pleiades" surrounding the tail star (Theta Carina) of a prominent kite shaped group of stars in Carina. Smaller and less spectacular than their northern counterparts, they still look very nice in binoculars. Four fingerwidths to the left of the Southern Pleiades are two rich open clusters, and the barely visible star Eta Carina. Eta Carina's spectacular nebula is only dimly seen in binoculars. Five handspans up from the Southern Cross and one handspans to the left is the False Cross, just below the False Cross is a good open cluster, just visible to the naked eye, and very nice in binoculars. One handspan to the left of the False Cross is another rich open cluster, again, very nice in binoculars. Canopus (alpha Carina), the second brightest star in the sky, is 11 handspans from the southern horizon above the main band of stars.
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Sky Maps
How to use the maps
Comparison of a section of a skymap showing the Southern Cross (Crux) and pointers, with the appearance of the night sky. The map and sky are for August 1 at 10.00 pm, facing south. Both show approximately 30 degrees (5 handspans) of sky just above the horizonThe maps look a little busy, as they cover all sky from horizon to zenith. The grid lines are navigational helpers; each horizontal or vertical line covers 30 degrees of arc (the gridlines in the illustration show 15 degrees of arc), which is roughly five handspans (where a handspan is the width of your hand, held flat light a "stop" sign at arms length). As you can see from the way the lines bunch up. The map is a little distorted, due to trying to project a spherical surface on a flat surface. The horizon is the lowest curved line on the map (for technical software reasons I can't block things out below the Horizon). Constellations are linked by lines and their names are in italics. Stars are shown as circles of varying size, the bigger the circle the brighter the star. The stars are named with their Bayer letter (eg a - alpha, the brightest star in a constellation, a Crucis is the brightest star in Crux). Variable stars are shown as hollow circles, double stars are marked with a line (eg a, b and g Crucis are all double stars, that look quite beautiful in a small telescope). Clusters and Nebula brighter than magnitude 6.0 are marked as broken circles (eg the Jewel box cluster next to b Crucis above which is best viewed in binoculars or a telescope) and squares respectively. To find Crux for example, locate Crux on the appropriate map (eg see the illustration above). Holding the Map, face either east or west (depending on the map), then use the grid lines to determine how far over and up you should look, then look for the Crux pattern in that part of the Sky.
GIF Maps
A view of the Eastern March sky at 10.00pm AEST on 1 March can be downloaded here (marsky_e.gif 30 Kb) and a view of the western March sky can be downloaded here (marsky_w.gif 30 Kb). These are more compact files but don't have a lot of resolution.If you wish to print the GIF maps directly from Netscape you must set the printer in landscape mode and you must set the margins to 0 cm (yes, that's right, 0 cm) or the maps will not print correctly.
PDF Maps
High Resolution PDF files can be obtained for the eastern (110 Kb) and the western (110 Kb) horizon maps.The Zenith Map (110 Kb) shows you the whole sky. You will need to face the one of the compass points, then hold the map with the appropriate compass point on the map at the bottom of the page.
You will need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat or GhostView to view and print them. They look slightly worse on-screen than the GIF files, especially as Acrobat 3.0-4.0 can only display them side on, but print much better and come with legends. However, Acrobat 4.05 and higher can display them in the proper orientation.
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[December Skies] [January Skies] [February Skies]
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Cheers! And good star gazing!
Ian's Astrophotography Gallery
Some of the photographs/images I have taken in recent years of astronomical phenomena that may be of interest.
- Partial Lunar eclipse. Partial Lunar eclipse, July 5, 2001
- My Solar eclipse report. Pictures from the Dec 4, 2002 solar eclipse in South Australia
- Transit of Mercury pictures! 7 May 2003
- Images of the partial solar eclipse 24 Nov 2003
- Transit of Venus June 8 2004 report
- Images of Jupiter, taken, after an enormous struggle, with my webcam, April 2005
- Mosaics of the Moon, more fun with my webcam, April-May 2005
- Animation of Sunrise on the Moon November 2006
- Animation of A shadow Transit on Jupiter May 2007
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Links
Societies:
- OnLine Astronomical Societies in Australia, from the Astronomical Society of New South Wales Inc.
- Astronomical Society of Australia
Australian Planetariums:
- A clickable star map for Victoria
- Monthly free Star maps. High quality, monthly maps for Southern and Northern Skies, has lists of interesting objects. Requires Adobe Acrobat to print.
- ASNSW Astro Almanac page for 2004
- ACT skywatch This site focuses on the ACT.
- Australiasky has moved, this nice site covers all of Australia, and has some nice features.
- Gordon Garradd's Astronomy Page
- Excellent Magellanic Cloud page with heaps of maps and info.
- Peter Enzerinks Astronomy page - Web based telescope/eyepiece calculator and other southern sky tidbits.
- Southern star gazer A bit heavy on graphics but pretty good.
- Buying a telescope in Australia, lots of helpful hints.
- Anglo-Australian Observatory
- MSSSO - Mt Stromlo and Siding Springs Observatory
- ATNF - Australian Telescope National Facility
- Parks Radio telescope facility
- RP - CSIRO Radio Physics (part of TIP Division)
- Spaceguard Australia the proposed search for Near Earth Objects including meteroids.
- Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex
- Melbourne's Astronomy Central
- Star Class, Astronomy Education
- Information about Aboriginal astronomy.
- Australian weather forecasts
- Sky and Space, Australia's Astronomy magazine.
- Planetary Society, Australian Volunteers events diary.
- Australian Astronomy
Astronomy for Kids
- Canberra Planetarium and Observatory
- Launceston Planetarium
- Science Centre and Planetarium (Wollongong)
- Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium
- Perth Observatory and Planetarium
- Museum of Victoria Planetarium, Skynotes Index
- The Cosmos Centre in Charleville
International Resources:
- Star Class Kids Club (costs $30/year for materials)
- Thursdays Class Room NASA sponsored site, more planetary science really
- Interactive site on the Sun, good kids resources
- ABC Space for Kids, Games, information and more.
Stunning sites:
- SEDS, home of the Nine Planets Tour, and much much more
- The Planetary Society
- Center for Backyard Astrophysics
- Amateur Radio Telescopes
- International Occulation Timing Society
- Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy pages (very educational)
- SKY Online - Your Astronomy Source on the World Wide Web
- Astronomy Magazine
- Stellar distances
- Space Weather site (with Meteor counts)
- Near Earth Object home page (also follows comets, including LINEAR S4 and meteor showers)
Useful programs:
- A 3D map of satellites orbiting the Earth in real time! Simply amazing!
- The Anglo Australian Observatories 3D virtual tour through a 3D map of the Cosmos. Mind Blowing!
- Views of extrasolar planets seen from the Southern sky, stunning Java-driven map with heaps of (complex) info.
- Stellarium, free (but large) photorealistic sky charting software. What I use for the horizon views.
- Celestia, free 3D space travel software, see the Earth from Mars, see the Moon of EL62, see Saturn rise on Titan.
- Ian's Celestia resources. Save these files into the "Extras" directory
- Script to show Conjunctions of Earth from Mars.
- Definition File for asteroid 87 Sylvia and her two moons (see story here).
- Definition File for Pluto's two new Moons P1 and P2.
- Definition file for three Neptunian extrasolar planets of HD 69830.
- Asteroid 2004 VD17, which will not hit the Earth.
- Definition file for Comet 2006/P1 McNaught
- Definition file for for the Gliese 581 system that contains the most Earth-like world yet.
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Charts, Books and Software for Astronomy
If you would like to have charts available all the time, rather than relying on mine, for between $2-$10 you can pick up a planisphere from a newsagent or bookshop (or for a bit more you can get fancy ones from Australian Geographic, the ABC shop or the other Australian Geographic look alike shop, or the Wilderness Society, or even a binocular/ optical store). The planisphere won't give you position of the planets, so you will need to get the planet rise/set times. These can be found in most serious newspapers (the Age, the Australian, SMH etc. The Australian is probably the best bet for budding amateurs). The combination of planisphere and rise/set times is the best value for beginners though, if you are not too worried about identifying star clusters in your binoculars.Or, for $19.95 US, you can have the Touring the Universe through Binoculars Atlas http://www.philharrington.net/tuba.htm which can print observing charts, but has a few annoying quirks. These include having no horizon line, and the planets are shown in the wrong places.
I use a combination of a 1962 star chart, the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac and SkyMap Pro 11.0 . I highly recommend the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. It is more helpful for planetary/comet/asteroidal observations and eclipses than for double stars, clusters galaxies etc, but is an excellent resource for Australian observers and anyone who would like to seriously follow the planets in Australia should have this almanac. It has easy to follow month-by-month summary information, as well as detailed charts, tables and whole sky maps. It is easily navigated. The Almanac is often in big bookstores or optical shops, or email info@quasarastronomy.com.au to purchase a copy directly for those outside major population centres. The Australian Astronomy almanac comes out in around November for the following year, and is now approx $24.
Sky and Space, the Australian equivalent of Sky and Telescope, is also very good, especially for breaking news. It is found in most big newsagents at $7.40 an issue. Disclaimer! I am now a contributing editor and write the planetary observation section for Sky and Space.
Sky and Telescope now also do an Australian version of their magazine.
For detailed chart drawing and timing of events, as well as satellite track predictions I feed the information from the almanac into the $150 AUD SkyMap Pro 11.0 , planetarium program. This is a very handy program which prints maps of every possible orientation and scale. The maps on this page are produced by SkyMap.
A shareware version of SkyMap that runs on windows 3.x, and win95 can be found here http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win3/desktop/skymp21a.zip this is approximately 640 Kb zipped.
A shareware version of the win95 only version 5.0 is here http://www.download.net.au/cgi-bin/dl?13607
Other highly recommended Sky charting packages (win95/98/2000/XP sorry) are:
Cartes du Ciel at http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/ (FREE) a bit messy to install but very good.
Stellarium at http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/ (FREE) stunning photorealistic program, but requires grunty PC and OpenGL.
TheSkyVarious packages from $49 US to $249 US
Stary Night various versions from $49 us for the basic pack (10 day trial of the basic pack at http://www.siennasoft.com/english/downloads.shtml) up.
Earth Centered Universe $88 AUD (shareware version at http://www.nova-astro.com/)
On the other hand a standard Sky Atlas for serious observing (much handier than carting a computer with you) such as Norton's Star Atlas can range from $35 to $90.This is not meant to be a product endorsement of any kind (outside of the Australian Astronomy 2008 almanac. For any budding astronomers out there, it is fantastic value and no, I don't have any commercial interest in it, but I did win bronze in their website Olympics). I am now also a contributing editor for Sky and Space so naturally take my enthusiasm with the appropriate grains of salt (although I was enthusiastic before I was approached to write for it).
This page can be used freely for any non-commercial purpose but please attribute it correctly. However, see the disclaimer.
Email: reynella@mira.net
e-mail
Ian with any suggestions
Created: Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 11:22:13 PM
Last Updated: Monday, 21 January 2008, 11:30:13 PM
