Monday 13th to Sunday 19th March 2023
If you are up early on the morning of Wednesday 15th, the Moon will just past the third quarter phase and its libration (or wobble) means that the north west edge of the Moon's surface will be tilted slightly towards us. At 5am on 15th, the Moon will be located towards the south. The red super giant star Antares will be to the right of the Moon.
I previously mentioned an observing opportunity called the Messier Marathon and it takes place over the weekend of 18th and 19th March this year, when it is possible to see all 110 Messier objects over one night. It coincides with a New Moon, so there will be no light pollution from our celestial neighbour.
Charles Messier was a French astronomer who lived in the 1700s. His particular interest was finding and recording comets, but he kept getting confused by other fuzzy blobs in the night sky. To avoid being caught out by them, he decided to log these deep sky objects and this became known as the Messier Catalogue.
His list contains open and globular clusters of stars, different nebulas or areas of gas and distant galaxies. The first edition of the catalogue was published in 1774 and contained 45 objects. Over the following ten years, it grew to 103. Much later, in the early 1900s, a further seven objects were added that Messier had noted, but not bothered to formally add to his catalogue.
Why not have a go and see how many you can find! Star charts showing the locations are readily available on the Internet - just search for "Messier Marathon".
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2023
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