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This month, the sky presents us with a pretty ballet of planets in the early morning. You’ll have to get up early before sunrise to see the planets Mars, Saturn and Venus dancing together on the east-southeast horizon.
You will be particularly impressed by the movement of the two planets closest to us Venus and Mars which, I remind you, revolve respectively in 224 days and 687 days around the Sun. Around March 25, 2022, the 3 planets will form a nice isosceles triangle. On March 28, the Moon will enter the dance and a pretty crescent will accompany the 3 planets. On March 29, Saturn and Venus will be very close to each other, about 2° apart. Finally, the highlight of the show will be April 5, Mars and Saturn will be confused and a double star will be easily observable in a small telescope.
Mars, Venus and Saturn: only visible planets
Only these 3 planets will be easily visible. For Jupiter, we will still have to wait a little bit even if at the beginning of April 2022, we will start to see it in the lights of dawn just before sunrise. On the other hand, this month, I have a very interesting little challenge for our listeners. The planet Uranus is always difficult to observe because it remains a small, very weak point only visible with binoculars and a telescope and you never really know how to find it. On Sunday evening April 3, try to detect it with a small pair of binoculars thanks to the Moon. To find it, you will have to stare at the pretty lunar crescent visible just after sunset and wait for the sky to darken. Less than half a degree of the Moon below the crescent, you will discover Uranus as a small green dot. Nothing impressive, but Uranus is 50,000 km in diameter and orbits the Sun at nearly 3 billion km. For a long time, this planet was unknown and it was not until March 13, 1781 that William Herschel discovered this new planet. Suddenly, the size of the solar system doubled because before it, Saturn was the most distant planet that we knew.
The constellations to observe
The constellations of spring or autumn depending on the hemispheres are coming! This month, a little focus on two constellations of the zodiac which will be very high in the sky or even just above your heads, the constellations of Leo and Virgo. To find the Lion, start from the Big Dipper. Take the 2 leftmost stars of the pan and draw a line under the pan about 40° and you will come to a very bright star, the star Regulus. From there, you should see a large array of stars that will remind you of the body of a recumbent animal with the star Denebola at its tail. To find Virgo, extend the bend in the tail of the Big Dipper, you will first come across the star Arcturus of Bouvier and if you continue to extend you will come across Spica or the Epi of Virgo. From this star you should see a large diamond that forms the constellation Virgo.
A new glasses to be won, result on April 15
A new astronomical telescope is once again put into play thanks to our partners SSVI and RFI. To participate, send on our page Facebook Astronomy Africa your most beautiful photos or videos or even a nice text that you have written. The winner will be announced on April 15, 2022. Good observations. Good heavens to all, and remember the sky is the biggest screen, just look up.