Tuesday, March 29
Venus passes 2° north of Saturn at 9 A.M. EDT this morning. A few hours earlier, in the predawn sky, bright Venus appears to Saturn’s upper left, both near the 3rd-magnitude star Deneb Algedi. The Moon enters the scene not long before the Sun — our satellite rises around 5:55 A.M. local time, with the Sun emerging above the horizon a little less than an hour later.
Look due south two hours before sunrise, and in the dark sky you’ll see the constellation Scorpius standing on his tail low on the horizon. The Scorpion’s most famous star is his heart, the glowing red giant Antares, whose brightness and color can rival those of Mars. Scorpius sits in the direction of the rich center of our Milky Way and is rife with deep-sky targets, including four Messier objects: M4, M6, M7, and M80.
Let’s focus in on M4, a magnitude 5.6 globular cluster near Antares. M4 sits less than 1.5° west of the star and covers 36′ of sky. In the very dark hours before sunrise, you may even spot this object with the naked eye; if not, binoculars or any scope will bring out its brilliance. Look for the cluster’s odd central “bar” of 11th-magnitude stars, which stretches for about 2.5′ in the middle of the grouping.
Sunrise: 6:49 A.M.
Sunset: 7:22 P.M.
Moonrise: 5:55 A.M.
Moonset: 4:40 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (8%)
Wednesday, March 30
The Moon continues its parade through the solar system, passing 4° south of Jupiter at 11 A.M. EDT and then 4° south of Neptune at 3 P.M. EDT.
Although you can’t currently catch these distant planets, by an hour after sunset tonight, you can spot Uranus, floating in southern Aries the Ram. At magnitude 5.9, it’s a binocular object, positioned roughly halfway between Hamal (magnitude 2) in Aries and Menkar (magnitude 2.5) in Cetus. Its tiny disk appears as a small, “flat” gray star, with no other detail visible.
If you’re up for some deep-sky observing, next turn your gaze north toward Ursa Major. This large constellation has so much more to offer than its trademark asterism, the Big Dipper. Today, we’re zooming in on two galaxies in the northwestern part of the Great Bear: M81 and M82, also known as Bode’s Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy, respectively.
Let’s go in ascending numerical order, staring with M81. Discovered in 1774 by Johann Elert Bode, this 7th-magnitude grand design spiral sits 2° southeast of magnitude 4.5 24 Uma. It spans about 21′ by 10′ and is an easy extragalactic target to spot in any scope, appearing as a faint, oval-shaped whitish-gray glow.
The bonus is nearby M82. It, too, was discovered in 1774 by Bode. A fainter (magnitude 8.4) and smaller (9′ by 4′) galaxy than its neighbor, M82 has been through a lot. This galaxy has been distorted and its star formation jump-started by a recent close encounter with M81. It is now forming stars so furiously that astronomers classify it as a starburst galaxy, and the supermassive black hole at its center appears to be voraciously eating any gas and dust sent its way by gravitational perturbations. M82 sits 37′ north of M81, rendering the pair visible in wide fields of view — try glimpsing them together through your telescope’s finder scope.
Sunrise: 6:47 A.M.
Sunset: 7:23 P.M.
Moonrise: 6:22 A.M.
Moonset: 5:50 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (3%)
The Sky This Week: The Moon passes the planets
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