The Night Sky for March, 2010

March is one of the best times of the year for astronomy, simply because there is so much to see!

Orion and Taurus – along with all the amazing objects that surround that part of the sky, such as Orion's nebula, Betelgeuse, the Pleiades - are visible in the evening, and as they set by midnight, the summer highlights begin to rise in the east – Hercules, the Great Globular cluster, with Vega and the rest of the summer triangle on their way from the morning sky into the evening sky, signalling that summer is not far away.

We can see both Mars and Saturn throughout the night, with the latter rising at sunset. The Moon glides under Mars on the 25th March, and then passes under Saturn a few days later on the 29th. Both Mars and Saturn are quite bright, so they are easy to spot.

For more details, I recommend you use the free planetarium software Stellarium – you can download it for Macs, Windows or Linux.

Upcoming shifts at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich

During the end of October & November 2009, I'll be working in the Peter Harrison Planetarium at the Royal Observatory Greenwich on the following dates:

• Saturday 31^st October, from 2pm (including the Evening with the Stars)
• Saturday 7^th November, all day
• Sunday 29^th November, all day

On these days, I will be presenting a variety of shows, including:

• We Are Astronomers
• The Sky Tonight - Live!
• Visions of Saturn
• Space Safari
• Ice Worlds

For details about We Are Astronomers (featured in the clip below) see WeAreAstronomers.com (I'm particularly please with this show, since I was involved in its production!).

For further details about any of the shows, visit the Royal Observatory website.