This month’s planets
The Red Planet remains an easy target, while Uranus presents itself as an interesting sight
Planet of the month
Comparing how Mars looks now to how it looked last autumn, when it was at opposition and much closer to the Earth, is like comparing a candle to a car headlight, but the Red Planet is still an easy naked-eye object, and it’s in a very interesting and busy part of the night sky, too. As March draws to a close, Mars is shining at magnitude +1.2, making it still as bright as the star Pollux, but strikingly fainter than the sky’s brightest stars, which it was outshining last October.
At the start of our observing period Mars will become visible to the naked eye soon after sunset as an orange-hued star just to the upper right of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster, which represents the sharp horns of Taurus (the Bull), and not far from the red star Aldebaran. The two will be shining at roughly the same brightness, making a very attractive pairing in the sky. Mars will remain visible all through the evening before setting at around 01:00.