Society News and Night Sky Notes – March 1996 | Liverpool Astronomical Society

Society News Headlines

Feb 28th -New Type of Astronomical Object discovered in our Galaxy.
March 3rd – BBC1 Sky at Night – Results from recent space probes” Repeated Thurs March 7th BBC2.
March 6th – Did cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin have a close brush with death in April 1961?
March 7th – Hubble Space Telescope images of distant Pluto released Click Here.
March 9th – 11th satellite FSW-1 is due to fall to Earth. (March 12th?)
March 13th – 215th anniversary of the Discovery of the Planet URANUS in 1781 by William Herschel.
March 13th – 10th anniversary of the fly-by of Comet Halley by the probe Giotto, (1986).
March 15th – LAS Monthly meeting at NMGM Liverpool Museum 7-9pm.
March 16th – LAS North Wales trip to view Comet Hyakutake.
March 15th – 24th March SET’96 Week. Science events up and down the U.K.
March 21st – Planned launch of the Space Shuttle AtlantisSTS-76 on the 3rd Shuttle/MIR Docking mission.
March 22nd – Space Shuttle Atlantis was successful LAUNCHED at 08:13am GMT. However fluid leak may cut short flight.
March 20th – Spring Equinox 08:00am
March 20th – 2nd Anniversary of the opening of the LAS Pex Hill Observatory, by Patrick Moore (1994).
March 22nd – Public open night at the LAS Pex Hill observatory as part of Science Week’96, starts at 7:00pm.
March 22nd – Former shuttle astronaut Robert Overmyer killed in Plane crash.
March 24th – Comet Hyakutake Sky at Night special with Patrick Moore BBC 1. (time TBC).
March 24th – NEAR Spacecraft to image Comet Hyakutake at approx 15:00UT from 16.7 million km distant.
March 25th – Naked eye Comet Hyakutake now overhead at Liverpool, shining at Mag 0/-1 with a 15-20 deg tail.
March 25th – Hubble Space Telescope Images of the Great Comet of 1996! Click Here for results.
March 26th – First clear observations of Comet Hyakutake from Liverpool U.K.
March 26th – Reports & observations of fragment from the Comet nucleus of Hyakutake seen in comet tail.
March 27th – Internet Comet pages cramed full of wonderful images, see below in Comet section of this page.
March 29th – LAS Council Meeting, 7pm at NMGM Liverpool Museum.
March 31st – BBC1 Sky at Night – Classical Novae” Repeated Thurs April 4th BBC2.
March 31st – British Summer Time (BST) begins to-day.

THE NIGHT SKY DURING THE MONTH OF MARCH 1996

What will the weather be like to-night? – Click Here to find out.
To make your own star chart for your location at any time,click here.
Constellation of the week- Click Here. Maintained by Mr Richard Dibon-Smith.

The Sun and Moon

All times are in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

The 20th of March marks the date of the Spring Equinox when the Sun crosses the Celestial Equator, and day and night are of equal length anywhere in the world. March is also the month when the clocks are traditionally advanced by ONE HOUR to take us into BRITISH SUMMER TIME (BST). All times on this page will be given in GMT so please add one hour to the time given to obtain the (BST) after the 20th.

For Observer in the Liverpool Region, Merseyside – England, U.K.
Latitude 53degs 24 mins North
Longitude +3.0 degs West

            1st      6th     11th    16th    21st    26th    31st
SUNRISE    06:59    06:48   06:36   06:24   06:12   06:00   05:48
SUNSET     17:50    18:00   18:09   18:18   18:27   18:37   18:46

MOONPHASES

New Moon on 19th – 10h:46m
1st Quarter on 27th – 01h:32m
Full Moon on 5th – 09h:24m
Last Quarter on 12th – 17h:55m

THE PLANETS

MERCURY

Is at Superior Conjunction in the 28th.

VENUS

Is now a spectacular sight high up in the South-Western sky shortly after Sunset, unmistakeable even in bright twilight. On the 23rd it can be seen 5.5degs North of the Moon,and over the next few weeks will being to track towards a close conjunction with the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. So any of you with a suitable camera and telephoto lens this grouping should not be missed. Venus reaches Perihelion in its orbit on March 22nd, and greatest elongation from the Sun on March 31st, (46degs)

MARS

Is at Solar Conjunction on the 4th.

JUPITER

Is the only bright planet on view in the morning sky, lying low down in the South-East in the constellation of Sagittarius. On the 14th Jupiter is 5 degs South of the Moon and on the 23rd is is only 43′ arc secs from the naked eye sky Omicron Sagittari.

News on the Galileo Probe Playback information Click Here. Have a look at theNASA/JPL Comet Shoemaker-Levy Home Page

SATURN

Is at Solar Conjunction on the 17th.

Check out theSaturn Ring Plan Crossing Home page for more information

URANUS and NEPTUNE

Both are not suitable placed for observations at this time.

PLUTO

This is so very faint it is out of the reach of all but the largest of amateur owned telescopes.

METEORS

THERE ARE NO MAJOR SHOWERS THIS MONTH BUT ALWAYS BE ON THE LOOK OUT FOR BRIGHT FIREBALLS.

COMETS

On the morning of July 23rd 1995, two amateurs discovered a new comet near the globular cluster M70, just South of the “Teapot” in Sagittarius. Alan Hale in New Mexico, and Thomas Bopp in Arizona were independantly using 16/17 inch reflectors Comet 1995 01 Hale-Bopp may? get to naked eye brightness by the end of next this year/early 1997 as seen from Britain
Click HERE for news from the JPL COMET HALE-BOPP HOME PAGE.

Comet (Hyakataki) C/1996 B2 is predicted to be very bright and circumpolar from the latitude of Liverpool.
For most of March will remain in the constellation of Libra, best seen between 04-05:50am. It keeps to an almost vertical line, in terms of RA as it heads North. The Comet will be close to Alpha Librae – Zubenelgenubi on March 12th and near to M5 on March 20th/21st.
Click HERE for more Liverpool information. (updated 22/3/96).
Click HEREfor C/1996 B2 (Hyakutake) HomePage.
Comet (Szczepanski) C/1996 B1 is starting to faded, but can be seen in the constellation of LEO for most of March, heading for Southern horizon.
Comet (Hyakataki) C/1995 Y1 is still with us but will be a dim Mag 10 by months end.
For more information of these comets and many more check out the following pages:-The Sky Online Comet Page

The BAA COMET SECTION HOME PAGE
The NASA JPL COMET OBSERVATION HOME PAGE
The JPL COMET HALE-BOPP HOME PAGE
The THE ASTRONOMER (TA) COMET PAGE

OCCULTATIONS

March 1st at 02h:06m Disappearance of SAO 97012 a star in Gemini Mag 6.7
March 1st at 02h:07m Disappearance of 68 Geminorum Mag 5.1.

March 6th at 23h:44m Reappearance of the wide double star Struve1627 in Virgo Mags 6.7 and 7.0

Component B is Reappears at 23h:44m:13s
Component A is Reappears at 23h:44m:36s

These two stars are 19′ arc secs apart but within reach of most amateur telescopes.
March 30th at 19h:53m Disappearance of 6 Leonis another wide double star.Mag 5.3 and 9.6, 37′ arc secs apart.

NOVA CASSIOPEIAE

On August 24th a 9th mag Nova was discovered by Minoru Yamamoto. Its precise position obtained on August 26th is:-

            R.A. 1h 05m 05s.37
            Decl +54deg 00` 40".5 (equinox 2000.0 GSC)

            R.A. 1h 02m 6s.56
            Decl +53deg 00`44'36".6 (equinox 1950.0)

At the end of 1995 there were reports of this nova brighting to mag 7.

Click HERE for more information from the TA page.