MERCURY will be a difficult morning object at the beginning of
March. On the 1st it will rise 1 hour before the Sun and be about 5° up half an hour
before sunrise. At magnitude -0.7 it should then be visible in binoculars a little way round
to the south of east.
After the first morning or two of the month, the planet will become lost in the morning twilight.
It will be a superior conjunction on the far side of the Sun on March 14. Following conjunction
Mercury becomes an evening object setting shortly after the Sun, but even by the end of the month
it will set only 30 minutes later, so will remain unobservable.
VENUS will set just over half an hour after the Sun at the beginning
of March, and 45 minutes after it at the end of the month. So Venus will remain a very low
object to the west and difficult to observe throughout the month.
MARS will be a prominent evening object throughout March. It will
be fairly low object, highest and to the north at about 11 pm on March 1 and about 9 pm by
March 31. It starts the month at magnitude -0.6, but will fade a little to +0.1 by the end
of the month.
Mars will be in Cancer, it is stationary on the 11th after which it will start moving to the
east again through the stars. This will take it towards the Praesepe (Beehive) star cluster,
so that by the end of the month Mars will be 5° from the cluster.
On the 25th the Moon, 72% lit, will be about 3.5° to the upper left of Mars. The two
are at their closest soon after midnight.
JUPITER was at conjunction with the Sun at the end of February,
so will become a morning object in March. By the end of the month, the planet will rise nearly
two hours before the Sun, so be visible as a low bright object to the east in the dawn sky.
The very thin crescent Moon, just over 1% lit, will be just over 5° to the left of Jupiter
on the morning of March 15. The two will be very low to the east making them difficult to see.
This will be about 28 hours before New Moon making it a difficult object.
SATURN will be the best planet for viewing, after Mars, during March.
It is at opposition on March 22, so will be best viewed late evening. Saturn is only just
north of the celestial equator, so will get considerably higher in NZ skies than Mars.
However, Saturn does not transit, when it is due north and at its highest, until after midnight
during March.
The nearly full moon passes Saturn twice during March, on the night of March 2 and again on
March 29. In both cases the Moon will be a little under 7° from Saturn at their closest.
Saturn's rings are still only open a slight amount, so will generally appear as a bar either
side of the planet in a small telescope.