By Duncan Lunan

The Moon will be New on March 6^th and Full on March 21^st, the day after the Spring Equinox.   It will be the third successive ‘Supermoon’ when the Moon is Full at its closest to Earth.  If all goes well, on the day of the Equinox I shall be taking part in a media event for the re-erection of the Sighthill stone circle, the first astronomical one in the UK for over 3000 years, which I designed and built for Glasgow Parks Department in 1978-79.   The Equinox will be the 40^th anniversary of its completion by Royal Naval helicopter, but the hill on which it stood has now been removed to make way for new housing development.   After a petition which drew over 6500 signatures, the stones were removed intact in April 2016, a new platform had been created for them by June 2017, and following observations last year I was able to calculate the alignments to mark the solstices, equinoxes and key lunar events at the new site.   As of 27^th February six of the stones have been re-erected, and work is in full swing.

In the first week of March the planet Mercury is in the evening sky, setting around 7.30 p.m., but it’s not visible for the rest of this month, at inferior conjunction on this side of the Sun on March 15^th  (don’t look for it then!)

Venus is still bright in the morning sky, rising at 4.00 a.m., but will be disappearing by the end of the month.   The waning Moon is between Venus and Saturn on the 2^nd and passes Venus on the morning of the 3^rd.

Gaining altitude in the evening sky although growing fainter, Mars moves from Aries into Taurus, setting around 10.30 p.m., passed by the Moon on the 11^th and three degrees from the Pleiades cluster on the 30^th.   NASA has given up attempts to reactivate the Opportunity rover, which succumbed to a dust storm in 2018 after 14 years exploring the Martian surface.   Opportunity didn’t respond to a last attempt to restart it in February, and from there on conditions will deteriorate with the advance of autumn in that hemisphere.

Jupiter, in the morning sky in Ophiucus, now rises at 2.30 a.m., to the left of Antares in Scorpius, and it’s only 1.2º from the Moon on the morning of the 27^th.   Jupiter’s four large ‘Galilean’ moons are normally spaced out around the planet, but on March 10^th and 27^th they will be appear to be spread in a line to the east of it.

Saturn in Sagittarius rises about 4 a.m., near the Moon on the 1^st, and is one degree above the waning Moon on the 29^th..   Saturn is near Venus, though much fainter, on the 18^th.

Uranus is in Aries, below and to the right of Mars, near the Moon on the 10^th, setting about 9.30 p.m..   With the Sun now overhead at the north pole of Uranus, due to the weird tilt of the planet’s axis, a bright hood of cloud now covers the northern hemisphere, discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.   In a piece of really good news, the shutdown of the Wide Field Camera on the HST has turned out to be due to a false instrument reading, and the HST is back in business.

Neptune in Aquarius is now behind the Sun, in conjunction with it on the 7^th, but meanwhile the Hubble Telescope has discovered a new dark spot in the northern hemisphere, the fifth since their discovery in the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune in 1989.

The next meeting of the Astronomers of the Future Club will be on Thursday March 28^th, from 19:15 to 21:00 hrs at the RSAS Barassie Works Club, 4 Shore Road, Troon, KA10 6AG.   The speaker will be Dr. Martin Sweatman of Edinburgh University School of Engineering, speaking about the astronomical significance of ancient cave paintings, as reported in the press last year  (Charlie Jarvis, ‘Ancient Astronomy Paintings Discovered’, The National, November 28^th, 2018).  For more details contact Duncan Lunan on 07986-065437.

“Starfield, science fiction by Scottish writers”, edited by Duncan Lunan, is available from the publishers at https://www.shorelineofinfinity.com/product/starfield. Duncan’s recent books “Children from the Sky”, “The Stones and the Stars”, “Incoming Asteroid!” and “The Elements of Time” are available from the publishers, on Amazon or through booksellers;  details are on Duncan’s website, www.duncanlunan.com.