March’s vivid conjunctions, misty treasures
March’s night skies offer skywatchers two seasons’ worth of celestial finales and fresh beginnings.
Jupiter in the west is rapidly dropping in altitude during these last few weeks of winter as it heads to a solar conjunction — on the opposite side of the sun — in April. Already set by 8:30 p.m. Wednesday , Zeus is gone long before the end of twilight on the 31st. Views of it in telescopes will be unclear because the low atmosphere is layered and turbulent. All that aside, skywatchers still have time to bid a fond farewell to the Jovian giant as it bows out as an evening act until reprising in late July.
As Jupiter sets over the next couple of days, you’ll notice brilliant Venus rising up to meet it in dramatic fashion. By the 1st , magnitudes -2.1 Jupiter and -3.9 Venus get within ½ degree of one another in the closest conjunction in nearly two years. Don’t miss this dazzling duo’s one-night show; they won’t be this close again until February 2027.
But why wait until dark? After all, skywatching is much more than simply star gazing. Skywatching includes, but is not limited to, observing the immense sky and everything in it; daybreak and nightfall; meteorology and astronomy; pre-history and history; mythology and astral religions.
Even in the daylight, you can see the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus between 8 a.m.-8 p.m. March 1 if you know where to look. Beneath haze-free skies and with a pair of binoculars, make sure to position yourself behind a building or large trees to completely block the sun. A word of caution: even the quickest accidental glance at the sun by anyone with binoculars or a telescope will result in instantaneous, permanent blindness, unbearable, searing pain and one more regret to carry around with you for the rest of your life.
Next, count off 30 degrees to the upper left of the sun — marked by three fists’ diameter on the extended arm — to find Venus as small white orb. If you can’t see Jupiter, try again later as the sun gets lower in the western sky.
Once you’ve located Venus, observe the couple without binoculars and then perhaps share your discovery with those around you. At 7:50 p.m. March 27, about a half an hour after sunset, witness the conjunction of Jupiter and Mercury barely 3½ degrees above any clear, unobstructed horizon. The bright glare of early evening twilight will make spotting the solar system’s two smallest and largest planets challenging, so use binoculars to catch this rare apparition.
For its part, Venus continues to rise higher and set later to become the dominant evening star until July. Thereafter, the goddess of love becomes a conspicuous morning star in the east well into next year.
March has other celestial sights often overlooked due to their dimness and perceived inconsequentiality. Given time and careful examination, however, skywatchers find that there are treasures here.
Constellation Cancer, the crab in Latin, reaches its highest position for the year on the north/ south meridian — culminates — at 9 p.m. March 15. Only five dim stars make up the asterism, none brighter than magnitude +3.5. In binoculars or a telescope of any size, however, this patch of sky is spectacular in its gentle, glittering beauty.
To find Cancer, first locate the sickle of Leo, a backward-shaped question mark high in the east mid-evening. Scan to the west to find the two head stars, Castor and Pollux, of Constellation Gemini. Between these two rests the celestial crustacean. Although the faintest of the twelve constellations of the zodiac, Cancer was important in the astrotheology of ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Coptic Egyptians, Germans and Babylonians. With the exception of Chinese astronomy’s inclusion of the stars with the Vermillion Bird of the South, every civilization has depicted Cancer as either a scarab beetle, lobster, crawfish, crab or a nondescript water beetle. It’s usually an animal living in water but always has an exoskeleton.