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[intro music] >> Intro: This is Awesome Astronomy
>>Ralph: Hello, this is Ralph and Paul from Awesome Astronomy. For a full month of astronomynews,
views, interviews and answers to listeners questions go to www.awesomeastronomy.com or
look for Awesome Astronomy of iTunes, Twitter or Facebook.
>> Paul: March, the month the Romans named in honour of one of their most venerated Gods
- Mars and if the weather’s kind it’s a good month to plan an observing and imaging
campaign on a range of targets near and far across the astronomy empire.
>> Ralph: And as March welcomes the spring, we’ll start with a simple tour of one of
the finest constellations in the approaching galaxy season, Leo the Lion.
>> Paul: Yeah, this is one of those constellations that actually resembles what it's named after,
in this case it represents the Nemean lion killed by Hercules as one of his twelve labours
and is one of the older constellations in the sky. So let’s use the Lion for our beginner’s
challenge.
>> Ralph: Okay, so stretching way above the eastern horizon all month, we have the large
and unmissable shape of the sitting lion. Look for the the rectangular shape of bright
stars, about as wide as the distance between your outstretched thumb and little finger
at arms length, that represent the body of the lion. This is then topped by the coathanger
or backward question mark of stars that represents Leo’s head, facing southward towards the
constellations of Cancer and Gemini.
Let’s start off at the head of the Lion and work our way around. At Leo’s nose sits
Epsilon Leonis or Algenubi which over the space of a few days slightly increases and
decreases by less than half a magnitude in brightness. See if you can tell from one night
to the next if it’s changing brightness by comparing it to it’s neighbouring stars.
Moving into the Lion’s shoulder, lies the bright star Algieba - we’ll forgive this
name meaning forehead, when it’s much closer to the chest because this giant star has not
only a planet twice the size of Jupiter in its system, but also a companion star. You
can’t see the planet from Earth but a modest telescope will be able to split Algieba into
two nice colour contrasting stars of orange & yellow.
Sliding down to the front paws of the lion, we have the brightest star in Leo, Regulus,
itself a binary star that can be split with any sized telescope at high magnification.
As the companion star is only magnitude 8, the more still the Earth’s atmosphere is,
the easier the pair will be to distinguish. With an 8 inch scope or larger, see if you
can tease out a second yellow companion to Regulus.
Now, scoot along to the Lion’s tail and we have the star Denebola. The 2nd brightest
star in Leo and relatively young at only 400 million years old. For contrast, our sun is
four and a half billion years old.
Like Zosma, the bright star slightly above and to the right, Denebola rotates incredibly
fast and if you could see them close up, you’d see them bulge at the equator - similar to
Jupiter.
If you want to push yourself a little, the arrival of the Lion in our skies heralds the
arrival of the galaxy season and in Leo, the the cream of the crop is the Leo Triplet that
sits at the bottom right corner of an equilateral triangle that you can imagine if Zosma is
the triangle’s apex and Debeola is the bottom left corner.
Here you’ll see three smudges of light in a medium sized telescope under low magnification,
especially in dark skies. If you use a 5” or larger scope you’ll see that these are
clearly individual galaxies. It may be that you'll only see the brighter two at first,
but persist and you may find the third with averted vision - averted vision means looking
to the side of the object you want to see to let your more light receptive peripheral
vision reveal it.
In the Leo Triplet, the first of the brighter pair, Messier 65, is magnitude 10.3 and shows
us a spiral galaxy tilted away from us.
Next to it, Messier 66 is brighter at magnitude 8.9 and another spiral galaxy, this time with
a more favourable tilt, so large scopes may tease out the spiral arms and dust lanes,
but even smaller scopes should see a nice bright core.
The final companion in the Leo Triplet is Sarah’s Galaxy, NGC 3628, which is the dimmest
of the three at magnitude 14.8 and is a good test of how dark and how clear your sky is
and of course a good test of your averted vision ability. But seeing all three, 35 million
light years away, in the field of view of the same eyepiece really is a treat.
>> Paul: and if that’s whetted your appetite for galaxies then Leo also contains another
group of three that can be found half way along a line between Denebola and Regulus,
and there you’ll find the pair M95 and 96 and about a degree away, the galaxy M105.
Also worth hunting down is barred spiral NGC2903, a William Herschel discovery that can be found
in Leo’s nose towards Cancer and is thought to be a galaxy that resembles our own Milky
Way.
>> Ralph: So do go and explore the galaxy-laden constellation of Leo this month, and let us
know how you get on.
>> Paul: Of course, if you’re planning deep sky observing and imaging then you will want
to know where the moon is through the month in order to pinpoint those truly dark skies,
or if you are a fan of our natural satellite then you will want to know when is the best
time to take a look.
We begin March with a New moon, hitting first quarter on the 8th and reaching full on the
evening of the 16th. We return to last quarter by the 24th and like January we have a second
new moon in the month on the 30th. Recommended objects to look out for is the area to the
east of Mare Nubium here you’ll find a fantastic group of three large craters, named from the
bottom as Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel. A smaller crater just below Ptolemeaus is
Herschel, named after the great amatuer and discoverer of Uranus. Dipping into the Mare
Nubium you should be able to locate the stunning Rupes Recta, about level with Arzachel and
running north south, This is a fault line or straight wall and is 110km long 2km wide
and up to 300 metres deep. Day 8 of the moon's phase is a good time to look at these objects,
which will be on the 9th this month.
The moon gives us some nice encounters this month with a visit to the Hyades cluster and
Aldebaran in Taurus on the 7th, followed by Jupiter on the 9th and 10th. The 18th sees
the moon close to Spica and the planet mars and a few days later we have an encounter
with Saturn on the nights of the 20th.
Turning to these other bodies in the solar system we have to start with Jupiter which
this month reaches it’s highest point in the sky for 12 years. 2002 was the last time
you had to strain your neck and lean back to see jupiter like this. Sitting pretty in
the constellation Gemini and if you’re based around latitude 51 then Jupiter reaches the
dizzying height of 61 degrees at it’s highest. This will be a great opportunity to observe
and image Jupiter in the clearest and most transparent part of the sky. For visual observing
it is worth playing with coloured filters to bring out the different details of the
cloud surface, try blue to enhance the belts, while yellow will bring out some of the small
blue features that appear in the belts. Magenta may help you seek out those little white storms
and enhance the lighter belts. Light blue should be a great help in picking out the
Great Red Spot, smaller and fainter than it used to be. But what about imaging?
>> Ralph: Well, my first tip is don’t miss this opposition - well actually it was on
5th January - but Jupiter is still now looking as good as it will for more than a decade,
so make it your goal to enjoy Jupiter in the eyepiece or on an imaging sensor this February
before it starts getting noticeably smaller.
Now, if you are wanting to take an image of jupiter, you’ll want a scope with a tracking
mount to keep you centred on the planet, a barlow lens or Powermate to increase the focal
length and therefore the magnification of your scope, a webcam with a nosepiece or a
planetary imaging camera and a free piece of recording software such as SharpCap or
FireCapture..
Just get Jupiter in the eyepiece, pop the barlow or powermate in and make sure the planet
is still centred with your eyepiece, start up your free imaging software of choice and
then replace the eyepiece with your webcam or planetary imaging camera.
The image on the screen will likely require a refocus but you should see the planet and
maybe a moon or two in the software screen. The cloud bands and moons are the best things
to use to ensure you have the best possible focus - and this is worth taking your time
over. If you have a poor focus, you’ll get poor images and there’s nothing you can
do to rectify them afterwards. Then take as many 2-3 minute long videos as you like, using
the free recording software, and run those video files through some free stacking software
such as Registax, AutoStakkert or AVIStack.
>> Paul: If it all sounds complicated, Ralph & Damien have some simple tutorials on the
website at AwesomeAstronomy.com under the tutorials tab.
>>Ralph: So good luck, have fun and don’t waste this great opportunity to view or image
Jupiter while it still appears high and large in the sky..
>> Paul: Especially since, unfortunately, the other planets aren’t so spectacular
this month. Though Mars is racing towards opposition in April and while it is not a
particular close opposition this year, and certainly not in the best part of the sky,
Mars should now be putting on a bit of a show for us. Look for the pink bright star sitting
in the constellation of Virgo, not far from the Star Spica. A small scope is not going
to reveal much detail, but a good clear night should allow views of different surface shading
and the polar cap.
Saturn’s rising before midnight now and is always a wonderful sight even when not
at it’s best, we’re a long long way from Saturn being in the sort of Sky that Jupiter’s
currently enjoying and it remains an object low in the sky for northern observers for
many years. Despite this, the rings are very well presented at the moment and it never
fails to amaze.
Venus plays the part of the morning star this month and will be blazing away in the east
in the hours before dawn. It will reach its greatest western elongation on the 22nd, not
always a great deal to see with venus though worth trying with a few colour filters to
tease out any cloud detail. Dark blue is a good bet.
Uranus is almost lost in the evening gloom and is now a very faint and distant object
setting by 8.30pm One for the fans of the planet, but you will see little and the view
is one that requires imagination.
While Mercury and Neptune are not visible this month as they fight the suns glare.
March is the beginning of spring and this is marked on 20th by the Vernal Equinox, where
at 16:57 UT the Sun will shine directly down on the equator and day and night is equal
right across the globe. While this marks the start of warmer evenings it will also mark
the start of shorter nights in the north, so as time goes on our dark observing window
once again starts to shrink.
>> Ralph: So don’t forget you can also download our full Awesome Astronomy podcast for an
hour long show full of news, views, answers to your questions and interviews from around
the astronomy world. It is available on the 1st of every month in iTunes and as an RSS
feed.
>> Paul: You can also find tutorials, blogs, links to the show and sky guide on our website
at www.awesomeastronomy.com good luck and we wish you clear skies.
[Outro music] >>Outro: This is Awesome Astronomy