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!