NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 25-31 MARCH 2019.

The Night Sky This Week 25-31 March 2019.

The weeks are really going by quickly! The last week of March 2019 is here. Fortune was on my side this last week and I managed a few hours of eyepiece time! The report is under the "Observing reports" tab at the top of this page.

This week sees a few interesting events to keep a eye out for, providing you have the clear skies!
So let's take a look at the new week and what we can expect from the Southern skies over Africa.
Images are from SkySafari 6 Pro, a link to the webpage is available under the "Useful Links" tab on the right of this post.

MOON AND PLANETS.

The Moon is now rising at around midnight and will be at last quarter on Thursday the 28th. Some good news for the DSO observers!
On Wednesday morning at around 04H54 the Moon and Jupiter will pass within 1°52' of each other and share the same right ascension also known as a conjunction. You can see this in your early morning eastern sky as they appear in the constellation Ophiuchus.
The pair will be to wide to fit in a telescope field of view but can be easily seen in binoculars or with the naked eye.
Then in the early hours of Friday morning the Moon and Saturn will pass within 0°03'of each other, making this visible in a telescope, binoculars and naked eye. They will appear in the constellation Sagittarius.
Venus is still a early morning planet and can be found in your early morning eastern skies in the constellation Aquarius.
In the early evening Mars can still be seen in the constellation Taurus before it sets below the Western horizon at about 20H30.

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

With a Moon that only rises around midnight this week we have time to pursue those objects that require no Moon.
So let's take a look at two objects in The Lambda Centauri Cluster, and associated Nebula also known as the Running chicken Nebula.

To find this target simply find the star Lambda Centauri in the finder scope.
IC 2948 is the Nebulosity surrounding the star Lambda Centauri and IC 2944 the associated star cluster. The star Lambda Cenatauri is in the same field of view but not part of the cluster, it is thought to be a member of the Goult belt.
From my urban location the nebula remains mostly hidden in the light pollution, on the odd night of good seeing and transparency and the use of filters brings out the faintest wisp alluding to the larger nebula.
The cluster itself is rich and bright! And seeing that in itself is enough, although being able to see the full nebula from my backyard would be nice. This a great target and the cluster is visible in binoculars. Dark skies will be your best friend here and reveal far more of the nebula.
Something else of interest are the "Bok Globules" discovered in the nebula by South African astronomer Andrew David Thackeray. These Bok globules contain enough material to form several stars the mass of the sun.

The images below are intended as a guide only, I encourage you to print out your own finder charts or make use of the SkySafari app to locate them in the night skies. 

Enjoy the views!


INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION(ISS).

To see the ISS this week you will need to rise early!
Monday through Saturday offer sighting opportunities in the early AM. The table below is from the "Spot the Station" webpage, a link to it is under the "Useful Links" tab to the right of this post, and shows the dates and times for Durban and most Southern Africa. There you can find the specific dates and times for your city or town.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Mon Mar 25, 4:53 AM	4 min	30°	10° above NNW	27° above ENE
Tue Mar 26, 4:05 AM	1 min	14°	14° above NE	13° above ENE
Tue Mar 26, 5:39 AM	5 min	32°	11° above WNW	15° above SSE
Wed Mar 27, 4:50 AM	4 min	71°	45° above WNW	11° above SE
Thu Mar 28, 4:02 AM	< 1 min	22°	22° above ESE	15° above ESE
Thu Mar 28, 5:36 AM	3 min	13°	10° above WSW	10° above S
Fri Mar 29, 4:47 AM	2 min	22°	22° above SSW	11° above SSE
Sat Mar 30, 3:59 AM	< 1 min	12°	12° above SSE	10° above SSE

So be sure to get out there and look up, have fun and enjoy a night under a canopy of stars!

NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 18-24 MARCH 2019.

The Night Sky This Week, 18-24 March 2019.

Another week has gone by and still no observations for me. I did catch sight of Scorpius and Sagittarius riding high in the early morning sky! A small taste of things to come in the Winter months here in the Southern hemisphere.
The Moon starts to ramp up it's glare and is taking it's toll on the DSO observing.
So with this in mind, let's take a look at the coming week and what we can expect.

MOON AND PLANETS.

Thursday the 21st March will see the Moon reaching it's full phase. It will also be at Perigee, this is when the Moon is at it's closest approach to Earth in it's orbit around us.
When we have a full Moon close to the Perigee we refer to this as a super Moon, these typically occur every 13 months.
Each super Moon and monthly full Moon phase are usually given a name, this is named the Egg Moon since it is the first in the Northern Hemisphere Spring season.
Here in my sky Venus rises shortly after 3AM, with Saturn rising shortly after midnight, making these the two bright planets in our eastern morning skies.
Jupiter and Mars are our two early evening planets, Jupiter will be up and about before midnight in your eastern skies and Mars is visible soon after sunset and drops below our Western horizon just before 9PM.

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

With a full Moon playing havoc with most DSO let's turn our attention to two very easy double stars.
Double stars are two stars that appear to lie close to each other in the telescope, this could be a binary pair of stars or a chance alignment as seen from Earth.
Binary stars are in mutual orbits and are gravitationally bound to each other.
Some doubles will be very close together and you will need nights with good seeing and transparency and as much magnification as your scope can handle, others are much easier and should be a breeze in even smaller scopes and binoculars.
Both targets tonight are easy targets that will require a small telescope or large binoculars to split.

Acrux, Alpha1 Crucis , Double star in Crux, Magnitude +1.27 and +1.55

Acrux is the brightest star in the constellation Crux, also known as the Southern Cross.
Acrux is also the 12th brightest star in the night skies. Acrux is approximately 320 light years from our planet.
The two components here are Acrux A and B and are separated by 4.4".
Even in small scopes the companion stands out well and is a easy split even at low magnification.

Gacrux, Gamma Crucis, Variable double star in Crux, Magnitude +1.64 and +6.45.

Gacrux is the third brightest star in the constellation Crux and the 23rd brightest in the night sky.
The companion that makes up this double lies some 25' away and is thought to be an optical alignment as seen from Earth and is not gravitational bound. It is thought to lie at least four times further away than Gacrux which lies at about 88 light years from our solar system.
None the less the two make for a nice pairing in small telescopes and binoculars.

There are books and lists full of double stars to chase after and I encourage you to do so under the glare of the full Moon. As already mentioned some will require larger telescopes and other are easy binocular targets. Have fun finding and logging a few new doubles for your logbooks.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION(ISS)

The table below lists the remaining passes for this month over Durban and Southern Africa.
To get a listing for your city or town simply go to the "Spot the station" link under "Useful links" on the right column of this blog.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Thu Mar 14, 7:12 PM	2 min	12°	12° above WNW	10° above NNW
Mon Mar 25, 4:53 AM	4 min	30°	10° above NNW	27° above ENE
Tue Mar 26, 4:05 AM	1 min	14°	14° above NE	13° above ENE
Tue Mar 26, 5:39 AM	5 min	32°	11° above WNW	15° above SSE
Wed Mar 27, 4:51 AM	4 min	70°	45° above WNW	11° above SE
Thu Mar 28, 4:03 AM	< 1 min	22°	22° above ESE	15° above ESE
Thu Mar 28, 5:36 AM	3 min	13°	10° above WSW	10° above S

So make the most of your clear skies when they present themselves and have fun looking up!

NIGHT SKY THIS WEEK 11-17 MARCH 2019.

The Night Sky This Week 11-17 March 2019.

The weeks are flying by! And still we suffer from cloudy nights here in Durban, beautiful and sunny hot days but overcast nights, so no observing sessions for me.
So let's look toward the new week and what we can hope to see.

All the images are from SkySafari 6 Pro, a link to the webpage is under the "Useful Links" tab to the right of this post.

THE MOON AND PLANETS.

On Monday the Moon will 5 days old and will be 22% illuminated. By Thursday the Moon will be at first quarter and starting wash out our Western skies a bit.
Venus and Saturn remain early morning planets, with Saturn rising shortly after 1AM and Venus rising just before 3AM in the Eastern skies.
Jupiter is now a Late evening planet as it rises a touch after 11PM in the Eastern sky.  Mars is the early evening planet to look out for after sunset as it sets into the western horizon around 9PM..

DEEP SKY OBSERVING(DSO).

As the Moon reaches first quarter on the 14th it becomes more prominent in our skies and begins to affect the quality of our observations, especially DSO work. So let us return to some open clusters.
I enjoy my Open Clusters and there are such an abundance of them! No two clusters look exactly alike, each has it's own patterns and asterism's and magnitudes. Some have hundreds of stars and some will reveal only a few. Some have a variety of star colours, whites, blue's, red's Orange's and yellows.
So this week let us take a look at Collinder 135 and Collinder 140.

Collinder 135, Open Cluster in Puppis, Magnitude +3.79

Collinder 135 appears in the constellation Puppis in our South Western night skies as it winds it's way around the South Celestial Pole or SCP.
It's at an approximate distance of 1031 light years from our solar system.
The main component to this cluster is the orange super giant variable star Pi puppis. It varies in magnitudes between +2.71 and +7.94. All the 5th magnitude stars in this cluster are variables.
Find the star Pi Puppis in your finder scope and you should have the cluster in your eyepiece, easy as that.

Collinder 140, Open cluster in Canis Major, Magnitude +3.50

Collinder 140 appears in the constellation Canis Major which can be found in your South Western night sky. It is a  3rd magnitude cluster. The French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille first cataloged this cluster in 1751. The Swedish astronomer Per Collinder cataloged it in 1931.
While not as densly populated as Collinder 135 it is well detached from the background with two nice variable stars in NO Canis Major and HR 2834.
It is a pleasing cluster to the eye and easy star hop from the close double variable star Eta Canis Majoris.

The images below are intended as a guide to where you find these clusters, you can also print out your own finder charts using planetarium software or use your copy of SkySafari at the eyepiece to guide you to them.
Have fun finding these and logging them.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS).

The ISS makes three passes over Southern Africa this week. From Durban we will witness all three passes. The first on Monday then Tuesday and the next on Thursday evening, both early enough so the whole family can get out and watch the station as it sails high above our heads.
Look for a bright fast moving star and that is the ISS, it's hard to miss! It appears this way as sunlight reflects off the station modules and solar array.
The dates and times listed below are from NASA's Spot The Station and are applicable to Durban only, a link to the webpage is under the "Useful Links" tab on the right of this post where you can find the dates and times for your city or town.

Date	Visible	Max Height	Appears	Disappears	Share Event
Thu Mar 7, 8:17 PM	1 min	20°	10° above SSW	20° above SSW
Fri Mar 8, 7:26 PM	3 min	20°	10° above SSW	19° above SE
Sat Mar 9, 6:39 PM	< 1 min	10°	10° above SE	10° above SE
Sat Mar 9, 8:12 PM	1 min	33°	18° above SW	33° above WSW
Sun Mar 10, 7:20 PM	4 min	57°	11° above SW	34° above ENE
Mon Mar 11, 8:08 PM	1 min	18°	14° above W	18° above NW
Tue Mar 12, 7:17 PM	4 min	38°	32° above W	11° above NNE
Thu Mar 14, 7:12 PM	2 min	12°	12° above WNW	10° above NNW

So get out there and have fun looking up!