This Week's Sky at a Glance, February 27 – March 8

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27

■ While twilight is still bright this evening, watch for Venus to emerge very low in the west as shown below. Saturn, much fainter, comes into view somewhat later about a fist at arm's length above Venus and perhaps a bit left. Mercury is now all but invisible. Venus and Mercury set before the end of twilight. This loose gathering, plus Jupiter high overhead, is behind the ridiculous "planet parade" hype you may have seen in other outlets along with spectacular illustrations of six huge planets lined up in a row across the sky. See "This Week's Planet Roundup" farther below.)

■ Much higher this evening, the Moon, Castor, and Pollux form a fairly straight line, with Jupiter perpendicular to the line and forming a T. See the scene below.

How exact will this pattern be? Your view may diverge a bit from the illustration depending on your location and time. This is due to the orbital motion of the fickle Moon creeping across its celestial background hour by hour, and to your own particular point of view toward the Moon from the Earth's wide surface. Moreover, Earth carries you sideways as it rotates.

This whole celestial group will turn clockwise as a unit as it crosses the sky through the night, because the rotating Earth also changes your idea of which way is up.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28

■ Now the Moon, in dim Cancer, shines far lower left of Jupiter and company as shown above at nightfall. By 8 or 9 p.m. the scene will have turned so that Jupiter is directly right of the Moon.

SUNDAY, MARCH 1

■ The Moon, nearly full, shines in Leo this evening. Look for its 1st-magnitude star Regulus a few finger-widths below or lower left of the Moon.

Upper left from Regulus extends the Sickle of Leo. It's about a fist at arm's length tall and is shaped like a backward question mark. Cover the glary Moon with your finger if needed.

A fist or so to the Sickle's lower left, Leo's hindquarters and tail form a long triangle.

■ A moonlit challenge: Bright Sirius shines high in the south on the meridian by about 8 p.m. now. Use binoculars or a wide-field scope at low power to examine the spot 4° south of Sirius (directly below it when it's on the meridian). Four degrees is somewhat less than the width of a typical binocular's or finderscope's field of view. Even through the moonlight, can you see a dim little patch of gray haze there? That's the open star cluster M41. Its total magnitude adds up to 5.0.

Compare your moonlit view of M41 (or at least of its position) with the Moon-free view a few days from now — on March 5th right after dark, and for the two weeks after that.

MONDAY, MARCH 2

■ Full Moon tonight and tomorrow evening. The Moon is exactly full at 7:38 a.m EST on the morning of the 3rd, splitting the difference between the two evenings.

■ A total Eclipse of the full Moon happens before and during dawn Tuesday, mostly for the western part of North America, with the Moon getting low in the western sky. Partial eclipse begins 3:50 a.m. CST March 3rd, 2:50 a.m. MST, 1:50 a.m. PST. Total eclipse runs from 5:04 to 6:03 a.m. CST, 4:04 to 5:03 a.m. MST, 3:04 to 4:03 a.m. PST. Check these times against your sunrise time! The eclipsed Moon sets in the west right around when the Sun rises in the east.

See the March Sky & Telescope, page 48, for much more. Also Bob King's Dawn Delight: Total Lunar Eclipse on March 3rd. Here's a world map that include the eclipse circumstances for the Pacific, Australia, and the Far East.

TUESDAY, MARCH 3

It's not spring for another 2½ weeks (the equinox is on March 20th this year). But the Spring Star Arcturus seems eager to climb into view. It rises above the east-northeast horizon sometime around 8 p.m. now, depending on both your longitude and latitude.

To see where to watch for its appearance, find the Big Dipper as soon as the stars come out. It's high in the northeast. Follow the curve of its handle down and around to the lower right by a little more than a Dipper-length. That's the spot on the horizon to watch.

By 10 or 11 p.m. Arcturus dominates the eastern sky.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4

■ February was Orion's month to stand at its highest in the south in the evening. Now March pushes him westward and spotlights his dog, Canis Major sporting Sirius on his chest, center stage on the meridian.

Sirius is not just the brightest star in our sky after the Sun. At a distance of 8.6 light-years it's also the closest naked-eye star after the Sun for those of us at mid-northern latitudes.

Alpha Centauri is the actual closest star (4.3 light-years), but you have to be farther south to see it. And in the northern sky three dim red dwarfs are closer than Sirius, but these require binoculars or a telescope.

■ The Sirius B challenge. Have you ever even tried for Sirius B, the famous white dwarf? Sirius A and B are still at about the widest apparent separation of their 50-year orbit: 11 arcseconds apart.

You'll want at least a 10-inch scope and a night of really excellent seeing. Keep checking night after night; the seeing makes all the difference for Sirius B. Clean optics help too. Use extreme high power, and look when Sirius is at its very highest in the south as it is these evenings. See the Sirius B hunting tips in Bob King's article Sirius B – A New Pup in My Life.

The Pup is northeast of the Dog Star and 10 magnitudes fainter: one ten-thousandth as bright. As Bob recommends, put a homemade occulting bar across your eyepiece's field stop: a tiny strip of aluminum foil held to the field stop with a bit of tape, with one edge crossing the center of the field. Use a pencil point to nudge the edge of the foil into sharp focus as you look through the eyepiece, holding the eyepiece up to a bright wall indoors.

In the telescope, rotate the eyepiece so you can hide dazzling Sirius A just behind the strip's northeastern edge.

If a diffraction spike gets in the way, rotate the telescope's tube if you can.

THURSDAY, MARCH 5

■ The shadow of Jupiter's moon Europa crosses Jupiter's face from 8:26 to 11:16 p.m. EST. Europa itself appears to bud off from Jupiter's western limb at 9:03 p.m. EST.

FRIDAY, MARCH 6

■ Pollux and Castor in Gemini pass nearly overhead soon after nightfall this week if you live in the world's mid-northern latitudes. They go smack overhead if you're near latitude 30° north: Austin, Houston, and the US Gulf Coast, northernmost Africa, Tibet, Shanghai.

The "twin" heads of the Gemini figures are fraternal twins at best. Pollux is visibly brighter than Castor, and it's pale orange-yellow compared to Castor's white. And as for their physical nature, they're not even the same species.

Pollux is a single orange giant. Castor is a binary pair of two much smaller, hotter, white main-sequence stars, a fine double in amateur telescopes. A scale model: Castor A and B would be a blinding white tennis ball and a blinding white golf ball about a half mile apart.

Moreover, Castor A and B are each closely orbited by an unseen red dwarf — a dim marble in our scale model, each just a foot or so from its bright primary.

And a very distant tight pair of red dwarfs, Castor C, is visible in amateur scopes as a single, 10th-magnitude speck 70 arcseconds south-southeast of the main pair. In our scale model, they would be a pair of marbles about 3 inches apart at least 10 miles from Castor A and B.

Space, even right inside a multiple-star system, is big.

SATURDAY, MARCH 7

■ Many binocular observers check in on the 5th-magnitude open cluster M41 just 4° south of Sirius. And now the sky is free of troublesome moonlight in early evening. But how many observers then look the other way from Sirius for the cluster M50? It's 10° north-northeast from Sirius, dimmer, smaller and more subtle than M41.

Find it by sweeping from Sirius first to Theta Canis Majoris, the 4th-magnitude pointy nose of the Big Dog's stick figure, then on again nearly as far in the same direction and just a touch to the left. M50 is not exactly easy, but it's there. I can spot it without too much difficulty using 10x50 binoculars through moderate suburban light pollution. Averted vision helps.

If you're trying under difficult conditions, get more detailed guidance using the Pocket Sky Atlas, chart 27. The more exactly you know the spot to examine for a difficult deep-sky object, the more likely you are to be able to detect it. Take time. Keep at it.

M41 is about 2,300 light-years from us; M50 is about 2,900.

■ Daylight-saving time, observed in most of North America, begins at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Clocks "spring ahead" one hour. Daylight time for North America runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November; the rules last changed in 2007. Daylight time is not used in Hawaii, Saskatchewan, Puerto Rico, or in most of Arizona.

SUNDAY, MARCH 8

■ On the traditional divide between the winter and spring sky lies the dim constellation Cancer. It's now very high toward the south-southeast in early evening. It's between Gemini (with Jupiter) to its west and Leo to its east.

Cancer holds something unique in its middle: the Beehive Star Cluster, M44. The Beehive shows dimly to the naked eye if you have little or no light pollution. Where to look? The Beehive is a bit less than halfway from Pollux in Gemini to Regulus in Leo. With binoculars it's easy, even under mediocre sky conditions. Look for a scattered clump of faint little stars, magnitudes 6½ on down.

Use a telescope to hunt out the much smaller, fainter open cluster M67 some 9° below the Beehive. Find M67 1.8° due west of 4th-magnitude Alpha Cancri.

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This Week's Planet Roundup

No, there's no "planet parade" happening of six bright planets all lined up. Don't be fooled by silly internet memes and graphics or those who get taken in by them. Here, as always, are the real planets' doings this week.

Mercury now fades rapidly day by day in the bright western twilight, and it's dropping lower fast too. That makes it a real challenge. Use binoculars or a wide-field telescope to try to catch it on February 27th or 28th while it's still about 2nd magnitude. See the chart at the top of this page (which exaggerates its visibility). Good luck. Few people ever see Mercury when it's this low and faint.

Venus, brilliant at magnitude –3.9, is much easier low in the western twilight. It shines a trace higher after sunset each day. But it's still setting about a half hour before twilight ends.

Saturn, magnitude +1.0, hangs 10° (about a fist at arm's length) above or upper left of Venus on Friday February 27th. They're closing in on each other fast. A week later on Friday March 6th, Saturn is only 2° upper left of Venus.

They'll be 1.1° apart, hardly a finger's width at arm's length, on the evenings of March 7th and 8th for North America.

Mars remains out of sight deep in the glare of sunrise.

Jupiter is bright and easy nearly overhead as you face south in early evening. It shines at magnitude –2.4, making it the brightest point in the night sky. It moves lower toward the southwest later in the evening. It sets around 3 or 4 a.m., depending on your location.

In a telescope this week Jupiter is still 43 or 42 arcseconds wide, though it's shrinking and fading as Earth pulls farther ahead of it in our faster orbit around the Sun.

Uranus (magnitude 5.8, in Taurus 5° SSW of the Pleiades) is high in the southwestern sky these evenings. At high power in a telescope it's a tiny but non-stellar dot, 3.6 arcseconds wide. You'll need a detailed finder chart to identify it among similar-looking faint stars, such as the chart in last November's Sky & Telescope, page 49.

Neptune, at magnitude 8.0 one degree from sinking Saturn, is lost in the twilight and the thick, low atmosphere.

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All descriptions that relate to your horizon — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world's mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions and graphics that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is Universal Time minus 5 hours. Eastern Daylight (EDT) is Universal Time minus 4 hours. UT is also known as UTC, GMT, or Z time.

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Want to become a better astronomer? Learn your way around the constellations. They're the key to locating everything fainter and deeper to hunt with binoculars or a telescope.

This is an outdoor nature hobby. For a more detailed constellation guide covering the whole evening sky, use the big monthly map in the center of each issue of Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy.

For the attitude every amateur astronomer needs, read Jennifer Willis's Modest Expectations Give Rise to Delight.

Once you get a telescope, to put it to good use you'll want a much more detailed, large-scale sky atlas (set of charts). The basic standard is the Pocket Sky Atlas, in either the original or Jumbo Edition. Both show all 30,000 stars to magnitude 7.6, and 1,500 deep-sky targets — star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies — to search out among them.

Next up is the larger and deeper Sky Atlas 2000.0, plotting stars to magnitude 8.5; nearly three times as many, as well as many more deep-sky objects. It's currently out of print, but maybe you can find one used.

The next up, once you know your way around well, are the even larger Interstellarum Deep-Sky Atlas (with 201,000+ stars to magnitude 9.5 and 14,000 deep-sky objects selected to be detectable by eye in very large amateur telescopes), and Uranometria 2000.0 (332,000 stars to mag 9.75, and 10,300 deep-sky objects).

Read How to Use a Star Chart with a Telescope. It applies just as much to electronic charts on your phone or tablet — which many observers find handier and more versatile, if sometimes less well designed, than charts on paper.

You'll also want a good deep-sky guidebook. A beloved old classic is the three-volume Burnham's Celestial Handbook. It was my bedside reading for years. An impressive more modern one is the big Night Sky Observer's Guide set (2+ volumes) by Kepple and Sanner. The pinnacle for total astro-geeks is the new Annals of the Deep Sky series, currently at 11 volumes as it works its way forward through the constellations alphabetically. So far it's up to H.

Can computerized telescopes replace charts? Well, I used to say this:

"Not for beginners, I don't think, unless you prefer spending your time getting finicky technology to work rather than learning how to explore through the sky yourself. As Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer say in their Backyard Astronomer's Guide, 'A full appreciation of the universe cannot come without developing the skills to find things in the sky and understanding how the sky works. This knowledge comes only by spending time under the stars with star maps in hand and a curious mind.' Without these, 'the sky never becomes a friendly place.' "

But, things change. The technology has continued to improve and become more user-friendly — particularly with software that can now recognize any star field to determine exactly where the telescope is pointed — finally bypassing all aiming imperfections in the mount, tripod, gears, bearings and other mechanics, or in the user's skill in setting up.

The latest revolution is the rise of small, imaging-only "smartscopes." These take advantage of not only today's pointing technology, but also the vastly better capabilities of imaging chips and image processing compared to the human retina and visual cortex. The most sophisticated image stacking and processing can also come built right in. The result is decent deep-sky imaging from shockingly small, low-priced units. The image may be viewable on your phone or computer as it builds up in real time. Some can directly enable contributions to citizen-science projects.

Smartscopes are changing the hobby at the entry level. For more on this revolution see Richard Wright's "The Rise of the Smart Telescopes" in the November 2025 Sky & Telescope. And read the magazine's review of this especially small one.

If you get a larger, more conventional computerized scope that allows direct visual use, make sure that its drives can be disengaged so you can swing it around and point it readily by hand when you want to, rather than only slowly by the electric motors (which eat batteries).

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Audio sky tour. Out under the evening sky with your
earbuds in place, listen to Kelly Beatty's monthly
podcast tour of the naked-eye heavens above. It's free.

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"The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking, it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before."
            — Carl Sagan, 1996

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
            — John Adams, 1770

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