We spring forward to Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, March 14th, and the new moon falls on March 15th.

If you want to see Venus, look just below and to the right of of the moon in twilight on March 16th, and will be just below i5 on the 17th.

The Vernal Equinox occurs at 12:33 PM on March 20th, announcing the arrival of spring.

There’s still much to see in our sky -- Venus dominates the western evening sky, growing higher in the sky each successive evening. Her disk is almost completely sunlit and tiny in the telescope as she is still on the far side of the Sun. Orange Mars is still bright in the NE at sunset, but fading fast, having been lapped by the Sun in late January at opposition.

On March 22nd, we pass between Saturn and the Sun, so Saturn will rise in the east in Virgo, coming up at sunset and staying up all night. As we are then closest to the ringed wonder, this is the best time to observe the most beautiful object in the sky.

When viewed with a telescope, the rings will be even open than last year, tilted about 11 degrees toward the Earth and Sun this year. Small scopes will also show its largest moon Titan.

While the naked eye, dark adapted by several minutes away from any bright lights, is a wonderful instrument to stare up into deep space, far beyond our own Milky Way, binoculars are better for spotting specific deep sky objects. For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, about March 1st visit the www.skymaps.com website and download the map for the new month; it will have a more extensive calendar, and list of best objects for the naked eyes, binoculars, and scopes on the back of the map.