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!