Hey, our Aussie skies are sparkling at the moment so why not get outside tonight with me under the stars from your own backyard. You won’t be disappointed with so much on offer for March.
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Jupiter looks spectacular in the eastern sky as it rises around 9.30pm. Bright Venus and reddish Mars can be found in the west before sunset. Saturn rises at 1am and is an early morning object until mid-year. From March to June our skies sparkle.
Orion and Taurus constellations are in the northwest after sunset. Taurus contains the beautiful Pleiades or Seven Sisters constellation, a small cluster including many young blue giant stars.
Remember, the starlight you see from this constellation tonight left there 100 years before Captain Cook left on his voyage to Australia, writes Dave Reneke from Australasian Science Magazine. When you stargaze you’re looking back into time!
The brightest star in our night sky, Sirius is nearly overhead at sunset. The Southern Cross is beginning to climb up to its autumn position, lying on its side in the southeast. This week is a good time for Moon watching as it becomes a crescent and a great time to visit your local astronomy club for a night of sky gazing.
If you’re new to astronomy, perhaps the most daunting part is learning all those stars. It’s a lot easier once you become familiar with the constellations.
Some say we spend too much time looking at our screens and not enough observing things around us, like the stars and planets. But, your screen, in this case your smartphone or tablet, can actually help you appreciate the skies more?
Here are some of my favourite Smartphone astronomy apps. “Sky View” will identify almost everything above your head at night, “MoonPhase” is for lunar viewing and a new Aussie app “ISS Flyover” will catch the space station.
Try the new Star Walk 2 app. It’s chock-full of new features and lessons, coupled with live tracking from over 8,000 satellites. Hold your phone up to the sky and the built-in gyroscope will point you to the direction in which the stars are located from where you are at that moment.
Not only will it show you the stars, it will give you lessons on how myth and history are strongly connected to astronomy.
Just like a weather app, it will also give you accurate daily data about the moon and its phases, sunset and sunrise times. If you're also curious what the sky will look like a year or so from now, the app can also give you that. Cool huh?
