The sky of March greets the entrance of spring with the second Super Moon of 2020 and a carousel of planets, “with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which still show between the first light of dawn and a flurry of conjunctions even more suggestive than those in February ”, observes the Italian Amateur Astronomers Union (IAU). Venus, queen of the evening, "continues the period of optimal visibility in the hours following sunset".
The official beginning of spring, the Equinox, is March 20, when it will be 4:50 in Italy. “The Spring Equinox - amateurs point out - is the moment when the Sun passes from the southern, or southern, celestial hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. As the name itself says, on the day of the Equinox in all places of the planet the length of the day is equal to that of the night ”.
In March also the second Super Moon of the four expected in 2020, in the first four months of the year. It is a popular, unscientific term that indicates a full moon with our satellite close to the minimum distance from Earth, the so-called perigee.
Depiction of the full moon next to the Solstices and the Equinoxes (source: Marco Meniero, www.meniero.it)
"In March, the full moon phase is day 9 at 18:48," explain amateurs. It is not for, the most spectacular of the year because "the most 'Super' Moon of 2020 will be that of April".
Semore in March, in addition, amateurs add, the Space Station returns to the protagonist of several passages on Italy, "in the evening, starting from March 18".
Finally, monitoring of the impact on observations and astronomical images of Space X's Starlink satellites for the fast internet continues, through the SatMonitor program launched by the UAI. Italian amateurs invite to report the passage, advising "to consult the transit table before launching the UFO alarm, given that - they conclude - they generally form trains with many satellites in a row".
