Jupiter and Venus shine brightly together, while the Moon meets up with Mars in this week\u2019s stargazing guide. <\/p>
What\u2019s in the night sky in the week of 27 February to 5 March, 2023 in our weekly stargazing guide.<\/p>
Chris Bramley <\/strong>Hello and welcome to Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky a Night Magazine. You can subscribe to the print edition of the magazine by visiting www.skyatnightmagazine.com<\/a> or to a digital edition by visiting on iTunes or Google Play.<\/p>\n Ezzy Pearson <\/strong>Greetings, listeners, and welcome to Star Diary, a weekly guide to the best things to see in the northern hemisphere night\u2019s sky. As we are based here in the UK, all times are GMT. In this episode, we\u2019ll be covering the coming week from 27 February to 5 March. I\u2019m Ezzy Pearson, the magazine\u2019s features editor, and unfortunately neither of my co-presenters could join me today. However, I\u2019m still going to be here to give you all the stargazing highlights we have coming up during this week. This week is going to be a really great one for all of you planetary observers out there. We have some great meetings of those celestial bodies going on this week, starting on 28 February, where Mars<\/a> is going to be getting up close and personal with the Moon. It\u2019s actually going to be heading towards an occultation<\/a> in the early hours of the morning, unfortunately, when that occultation occurs. So that\u2019s when the planet appears to disappear behind the Moon\u2019s disc and we won\u2019t be able to see it on the sky, but we also won\u2019t be able to see on the sky because it will have set below the horizon. It\u2019s only going to be visible if you happen to be in places like Greenland or Svalbard, which is an archipelago off the north of Norway or parts of western Russia. If you do happen to find yourself in one of those remote locations, you\u2019ll be able to see the occultation happening. It\u2019s going to start at 3:13am, so that\u2019s when it\u2019s going to appear to disappear behind the Moon and then it\u2019s going to reappear two hours later at 5:10 a.m. here in the UK, however, Mars is going to set at 3:10 a.m., so if you want to try and get to see these two close together, then the very early hours of the morning are going to be the best time to try and see that. You\u2019ll probably also be able to see the two close together in the evening sky, but just not quite as close, as the Moon will be creeping closer and closer throughout the night.<\/p>\n Then moving onto the week onto 1 March, we have a very exciting meeting between Venus and Jupiter<\/a>, which will be making their closest approach of the year in the evening sky. Venus<\/a> and Jupiter<\/a> are two of the brightest objects in the night sky. The only things that are brighter is the Moon and the Sun. The best time to see these two is going to be about an hour after sunset, about 7:25. They\u2019ll be 11 degrees up in the night sky. So nice and high. And you should be able to see the two close together in a nice dark night sky. They\u2019ll be up in visible for two hours after sunset until about 8:37 for Venus and 8:44 is when Jupiter is due to go down. But the closer that you get to their setting time, the closer they will be to the horizon. And it\u2019s much better to see them when they\u2019re nice and high in the night sky. At 7:25, they\u2019re going to be 38 arc minutes apart. To put that into perspective, the moon is about 30 arc minutes across. So they\u2019re going to be about one and a third times further apart than the moon is wide. So if you are trying to work out what you want to observe them through, you\u2019ll need a low power telescope, so a telescope with a low powered eyepiece put into it, meaning you can get a fairly wide field of view and you\u2019ll be looking for one where if you can fit the entire Moon into the field of view of your telescope with a bit of room around it to spare, then that should be what\u2019s going to be able to get this pair into view for you. However, they are the two brightest things in the night sky after the Moon, so they are very clearly and easily visible with the naked eye, even some fairly light polluted skies. You know, you need to be pretty, pretty light polluted to not be able to see these two. Jupiter is going to be magnitude -1.9 and Venus is going to be an even brighter -3.9. So because of the strange ways that magnitudes work, the more negative it is, the brighter it is. And that means Venus is going to be over six times brighter than Jupiter. So Venus is really going to outshine Jupiter. But both of them should be nice and bright and obvious. If, however, for any reason you do miss the pairing up on 1 March, I\u2019ll be honest, if you\u2019re out when it\u2019s up and it\u2019s clear they\u2019re going to be pretty hard to miss, they\u2019ll probably even catch people\u2019s eyes. I fully expect to hear a lot of people saying, Oh, did you see that bright star last night? I wonder what that was. And that\u2019s when you can turn around and say, That wasn\u2019t a star, that was Venus and Jupiter together. But if you do miss them, perhaps the weather\u2019s bad or you\u2019re caught up in something else. They will continue to get closer after they have set into the evening sky. And the closest approach that they\u2019re going to get is going to be 30 minutes apart at 9 a.m. on the morning of 2 March. I really wouldn\u2019t advise trying to to view those then because they are going to be close to the Sun. And we don\u2019t want to risk you hurting your eyes by trying to look towards the sun to see these two together. So even though the closest approach will technically be up in our sky, probably best to give that miss. Instead, what you want to be doing is looking towards the evening sky on 2 March because they\u2019ll still be relatively close together in the evening. Again, about an hour after sunset is going to be the best time to view them and they\u2019ll be 45 arc minutes apart at that point. So one and a half Moons. So that\u2019s a great opportunity if you know, weather or whatever stops you from seeing it on 1 March. Alternatively, because these are going to be so bright and easy to see in the night sky and you can see them getting closer and then further apart throughout the week. This might be a great opportunity for a fun little observing project, particularly if you\u2019ve got any little astronomers that you\u2019re trying to get more invested in the hobby or you\u2019re trying to do something a bit more long term than just going up and seeing things in the night sky. Go out every night, try and see the two together and make some kind of record about how far apart they are so that you can track it over the course of the week. So starting on 27 February, every night go out around 7:30 sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 and try and take some sort of measurement about how far apart these two objects are. Perhaps you could take a picture of them or you could hold your fingers up on the night sky, even make a sketch of them to show how they are orientated to the horizon and the nearby stars and each other as well. Then every night you go out and you keep this record and at the end of the week you will be able to see the motion of these two planets relative to each other on the night sky throughout the week. It\u2019s a great way to really start appreciating the fact that these planets are moving across the night sky.<\/p>\n Then finally moving on towards the end of the week on 4 March, the southern polar region of the moon is going to be tipped towards Earth due to an effect called lunar libration<\/a>. We\u2019ve talked about libration back on the last couple of episodes. You can hear that on our 30 January and 6 February shows if you want to go back and listen to those. But it\u2019s basically where the Moon appears to wobble slightly on the night sky, and in this case, it\u2019s going to be tipping that southern region into view a bit better. So it\u2019s a great opportunity to take a look towards the southern hemisphere of the Moon. The moon\u2019s northern hemisphere is much more famous for its huge dark Mare which across the surface. And there are a couple of more in the southern hemisphere, but not nearly as many. So instead, I would advise taking a look at the Tycho Crater<\/a> now on the 4th of March. The Tycho crater is what\u2019s known as a ray crater<\/a>. So when it was formed way back in the day, a meteor came in and created this huge crater. And when it did, it kicked up a whole load of ejecta and dust. Because the moon doesn\u2019t have any atmosphere that went high up into the sky and could travel incredibly far, hundreds and hundreds of kilometres. And it created these huge rays when it fell back down to the ground that we can still see today and we can still see from Earth. So that\u2019s a great thing to look towards. And if you want a bit more information about how you can do that, what are the best ways to observe it are, how it\u2019s potentially imaged. Yet we have some great guides all about ray craters on our website www.skyatnightmagazine.com And I\u2019ll link to those in the show notes as well. But 4 March it will be tipped slightly towards us. There\u2019ll be great opportunity to look at that. The moon\u2019s going to be about 92% lit. It\u2019s going to be a waxing gibbous moon as it heads towards full Moon on 7 March. But we will come back to that on next week\u2019s episode. And if you don\u2019t want to miss next week episode, do be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you don\u2019t miss out.<\/p>\n So to summarise in this week: on 28 February, Mars and the Moon are going to be getting nice and cosy on the night sky. Then on 1 March we\u2019ll have the closest meeting in the evening sky of Jupiter and Venus, two very bright objects. And finally on 4 March, it\u2019s a great opportunity to look towards the southern hemisphere of our Moon. So hopefully there\u2019s lots of things in there that you can start looking forward to and getting out there and observing. And we hope to see you back here on the podcast next week for even more stargazing guides.<\/p>\n If you want to find out even more spectacular sites that will be gracing the night sky throughout the month, be sure to pick up a copy of BBC Sky at Night magazine, where we have a 16 page pull out Sky guide with a full overview of everything worth looking up for. Whether you like to look at the moon, the planets, or the deep sky, whether you use binoculars, telescopes or neither. Our sky guide has got you covered with detailed star charts to help you track your way across the night sky. From all of us here at BBC Sky at Night Magazine. Goodbye.<\/p>\n