![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Saturn-March1.png\")
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\n\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re quickly losing sight of Saturn as it sinks in the west after sunset. Catch some of your last glimpses of the gas giant tonight.\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSaturn stands just a few degrees above the western horizon an hour after sunset in early March, moments after Venus has set. Credit: Stellarium\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n February 28: Orion stands tall<\/a><\/p>\n We are quickly losing sight of Saturn in the evening sky \u2014 tonight, take some time to glimpse the glorious ringed planet before it gets too low in the west.\u00a0<\/p>\n An hour after sunset, Venus and Mercury have set and Saturn is the brightest light in the western sky, now roughly 7\u00b0 high. That\u2019s already getting quite low, but try training your telescope on the distant world for a glimpse of its lovely ring system, now stretching about 36\u201d from end to end and showing off its southern side. The gas giant\u2019s disk is some 16\u201d wide, with its southern hemisphere also fully visible. You may just be able to spot Titan, Saturn\u2019s brightest moon, some 2.5\u2019 west of the planet, though this observation may be difficult in the muddy air near the horizon.\u00a0<\/p>\n Day by day, Saturn will set earlier and earlier, even as Venus rises up to meet it. We\u2019ll get a lovely conjunction of the two worlds in about a week, right around the switch to daylight saving time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sunrise:\u00a06:33 A.M. The nearly Full Moon passes just 0.4\u00b0 north of Regulus at 8 A.M. EST on March 2; you can catch the pair close together in the predawn sky, standing roughly 20\u00b0 high in the west two hours before sunrise. The Moon is located just to the lower right of Regulus, which anchors the famous Sickle asterism of Leo, which to many looks like a backwards question mark.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tThe Moon meets Regulus in Leo as the two stand close together before sunrise on March 2. Many regions will see the Moon pass in Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine<\/p>\n Regulus is also the bright star marking the heart of the Lion. Shining at magnitude 1.4, it is in actuality a four-star system, which observers can split into the brightest two components with a telescope. (Note the companion is quite far away, some 175\u201d, so you\u2019re not looking for a close double!) Regulus is also located nearly on the ecliptic, the plane of our solar system and the path of the planets, Sun, and Moon, so it is often occulted by other objects as they appear to pass in front of the star from our point of view.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although not visible in the majority of the U.S., some parts of the world (including Hawaii, Japan, and Russia) will see the Moon pass in front of Regulus today. The visibility and timing of the event are heavily location dependent \u2014 you can find more information on the In-The-Sky.org<\/a>\u2018s page for the event here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List We\u2019re quickly losing sight of Saturn as it sinks in the west after sunset.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":{"0":"post-323243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-observing","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sky-tonight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sunset:\u00a05:52 P.M.
Moonrise:\u00a04:06 P.M.
Moonset:\u00a05:42 A.M.
Moon Phase:\u00a0Waxing gibbous (98%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Moon-Regulus-March2.png\")
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