The Night Sky This Month

Northern HemisphereIan Morison tells us what we can see in the Northern Hemisphere night sky during March 2018.Jupiter.Jupiter rises just before midnight at the beginning of the month and about one hour earlier by month's end. Initially it has a 39 arc second disk, shining at a magnitude of -2.2 but as the month progresses, its apparent diameter increases to 42.5 arc seconds and it brightens to magnitude -2.4. Jupiter will transit before dawn and so will enable the giant planet to be seen with the equatorial bands, sometimes the Great (but reducing in size) Red Spot and up to four of its Gallilean moons visible in a small telescope. Sadly, Jupiter, lying in Libra during the month, is heading towards the southern part of the ecliptic and will only have an elevation of ~20 degrees when crossing the meridian. Atmospheric dispersion will thus hinder our view and it might be worth considering purchasing the ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector to counteract its effects. Saturn.Saturn, at the start of its new appar