The Night Sky in March 2026
We now notice the lengthening of the day as we head towards Spring. Our seasons are caused by the fact that the Earth spins on its axis at a 23.5° to its path of rotation around the Sun. This creates longer, warmer days in the summer and shorter colder days in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere and the opposite in the Southern.
In ancient times calendars started the year when equinox occurred. Our clocks also change to DST or what used to be BST on the night of 29th-30th March. Nothing to do with astronomy, more of a hangover from two world wars where it was considered that more time for farmers in the field would fill our food baskets.
Because of the angle of Earth’s rotation, the Sun will cross the Earth’s equator twice a year. This is called the Equinox. The Sun will cross equator on March 20th heading north until it reaches the maximum northerly movement to be over head at the Tropic of Cancer later in the year.
The day and night hours are equal at Equinox and this is the Spring Equinox, the point at which Spring is considered to start. Personally my Spring starts when I see crocus, snowdrops and daffodils. The Equinox occurs on 20th March.
The original point of the crossing used to lay in the constellation of Aries and was called the First Point of Aries. Due to the circular toppling effect of the Earths daily rotation, called Precession, it is now in Pisces. This is also why the Celestial Pole positions change over a 26,000 year period.
For visual and photographic astronomers this will mean shorter nights with lighter skies at sunset and sunrise.
If you happen to walk along Kings Lynn old quays just before the Equinox you might notice the difference between high tide and low tide is even greater at the period of Equinox. The alignment of the Earth, new Moon and the Sun in a line with the Equator creates much stronger tides from the 20th to the 23rd the period that cover the Equinox.
(Source:Wikipedia)
At the start of March the Sun rises at 06:40 and sets 17:32, by the end this will be 06:27 and 19:28.
The Moon
The month starts with the Moon one day short of full phase, the New Moon will occur on the 19th.
The Planets. No a great month for the 4 naked eye planets this month due to their line of sight proximity to the Sun.
Mercury: By the 21st of the month will barely rise by 6-7° so pretty much out of view.
Venus: Though a morning object it is too low in the morning sky from our latitude.
Mars: Is very close to the Sun and though a morning object is hard to see with roughly 15° separation.
Jupiter: Ends its retrograde motion on the 11th March and reverses its path through Gemini. It sets after midnight, it’d magnitude dims from -2.5 to +2.2 through the month.
On 1st, 9th and 26th March there will be opportunities to see Jupiter eclipsing of Ganymede, Callisto and again Callisto respectively.
Saturn: Will be in conjunction with the Sun and will be difficult to see in the twighlight.
Uranus : Will be setting before midnight, however as an aid to spotting it look to 13 Tauri where it will be just 0.2° south on the 18th, then on 26th March it is just 0.1° south of 14 Tauri.
Neptune: It is conjunction with the Sun and hidden in the Sun’s glare.
The Constellations
My particular favourite this month is Leo, the constellation named after the lion. To me it is a harbinger of Spring, much like Orion being a foretelling of the coming winter. It has historical references dating back over 6000 years to 4000 BCE when the Mesopotamians named it as a lion.
Leo can be found in the southern aspect of the night sky, it’s head is formed by a sickle of stars which also look like a reversed ? Mark.
Leo has 5 stars of magnitude +1 or +2 making it easy to locate.
It’s brightest star is Regulus (Little King or Prince) which sits just above the line known as the ecliptic. The ecliptic is an imaginary line in the night sky along which the Sun, Moon and planets travel. It is actually the plane on which the Earth travels around the Sun, it is angled at 23.5º to our celestial equator. Ecliptic – Wikipedia
Regulus is also known as α (alpha) Leonis. The Greek alphabet is used to grade stars in a constellation in order of brightness. Regulus is a blue-white star about 79 light years distant, Blue-white indicates it is relatively young. A pair of binoculars will show it is a double star, its fainter partner is not visible to the naked eye at +7.7 magnitude. These two stars rotate around each other every 40 days. If there are planets associated with either star then anyone standing on them would get two sunrises and sunsets at least!
There are other doubles in Leo, look at the Wikipedia entry and see if you can see them.
There are also some interesting galactic clusters which can be seen in larger binoculars & telescopes or or as I intend by camera with long exposures, the on Messier objects M95, 96 & 105 and the Leo Triplet of M65, 66 and NGC 3628. They are a challenge.
To the west of Leo is a fainter constellation Cancer Cancer (constellation) – Wikipedia. It contains two nice Messier objects M44 and M 67. M44 ‘Praesepe’ or the Beehive cluster because it does resemble a beehive cone. It is a cluster of over 50 stars and is 590 light years away. One of a group of clusters nearest our solar system. M44 is easily visible as a binocular object. It was certainly a naked eye object in Greek times
M67 is a bit more of a challenge as it is fainter, mostly +10 magnitude stars. 200 of them lying 2,600 light years away.
The area around Leo, Coma Berenices and Virgo is a litter of galaxies and well worth spending time looking at.
In the Northern skies circumpolar Urse Major is now vertical with the pointer stars at the top.. The ancient Chinese astronomers called the stars that we recognize as the Plough of Big Dipper the Seven Regulators as their two vertical, upside down and horizontal positions as marking seasons. The Plough to the Chinese was the Rice Ladle (Bei Dou).
Cassiopeia and Perseus are well placed and that will allow those with binoculars and wide field telescopes to see the Perseus Double Cluster, a favourite of many especially our Chairman.
I often refer to https://in-the-sky.org/ for information, an excellent website.
Keep looking up.
Frank Dutton FRAS