March will be our last chance to see Jupiter in the evening sky until next year. It’s getting lower and lower in the west as the Earth passes the planet. It will soon be behind the Sun in the daytime sky. (Orion and the winter constellations will shortly follow.) Venus, on the other hand, is getting higher in the western sky after dark as it catches up with the Earth. It is getting brighter as it gets closer to us. Sometimes people mistake it for a UFO. I remember getting a shock a few years ago when I was opening up a telescope dome and saw a suspicious shadow moving along the wall. After a brief adrenaline rush, I realized it was my shadow cast from the brilliant light of Venus. Mars is still in Taurus but now straight above Aldebaran looking west.
You can get a March sky map at https://skymaps.com/skymaps/tesmn2303.pdf Don’t forget that after March 12 everything in the evening sky will be seen an hour later due to falsely named daylight saving time.
OK, let’s continue with observing the northern sky as we approach the spring equinox. If you have a sky map, turn it upside down so that north is at the bottom. This is the view of the sky looking north. The Big Dipper’s bowl opens downward with the handle trailing down and to the right. It is high in the northeastern sky. (An old wives tale suggests that it rains a lot this time of the year because the inverted dipper is pouring water out of the sky!)
Remember: the Big Dipper is an asterism and only part of the larger constellation of the great bear, Ursa Major. The other stars of the great bear are dimmer than those of the dipper, but the Moon should be out of the evening sky this week. Seeing the star pattern of the great bear is more of a challenge than just seeing the dipper, but let’s give it a try. Hint: give your eyes 10 or 15 minutes to become dark-adapted after going outside and avoid car or street lights.
The star pattern of Ursa Major is almost upside down this time of year. Looking at the map, see that the bowl of the dipper is the hind end of the bear’s body. The front of her body with her eye and nose are to the left of the bowl. The legs of the bear point upward. The handle of the dipper is the bear’s long tail. Do you see it? Once you do, you’ll always look for the whole constellation if it’s really dark, and no moonlight to interfere.
Did you notice that I said “her” when writing about the bear? I also said the dipper’s handle was the bear’s long tail. What gives? Bears don’t have long tails! Why is the bear female?
Here is a challenge. Go to https://www.aavso.org/myths-uma and learn the Roman/Greek myth for the story, plus a native American story about the dipper as a spirit bear explains why robins have a red breast. Enjoy.
For questions or comments: James Hill, Mississippi NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, jhill6333@gmail.com.
