From Orion's belt it's just a star jump to the right and up to find Sirius, the brightest star in our skies. Sirius is seriously bright at about 20 times brighter than our sun and is only 8.6 lya. Sirius is part of the Canis Major constellation - one of the two dog companions that accompany the hunter Orion. Below Canis Major you can look for the two stars that form Canis Minor. The star Procyon, in Canis Minor, forms a triangle with the 1st magnitude stars Sirius and Betelgeuse.

Within this "southern triangle" you can look for the Monoceros unicorn constellation - home to the gorgeous Rosette nebula. This nebula has a beautiful carnation pick colouring and can be seen with binoculars in the part of the constellation closest to Betelgeuse.

Neighboring Orion is the zodiac constellation Taurus the Bull. Taurus and his fiery eye, the red giant Aldebaran, can be found low in our Northern-Western sky after sunset where we can easily make out his V shaped horns. Near his shoulder lies the Pleiades star cluster. On a clear dark night you can see seven points of light with the naked eye but it is best viewed with a pair of binoculars. The Pleiades is a young cluster of mostly hot blue stars, the big ones that burn up all their fuel quickly -they live fast and die young. These bright blue stars are said to be seven beautiful sisters. You can find the seven sisters sheltering in the shoulder of the bull hiding from Orion's amorous intentions.

After you get an eyeful of these blue beauties you can jump down to the Crab Nebula (M1) but you'll want a telescope for this part. M1 was the fist Messier object recorded by famous French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. To find M1 with your telescope look for Aldebaran first then follow the bull's horn to the end, it will be close to the horizon. Large apertures are needed to make out the filamentous detail. The Crab Nebula is was first viewed more than a 1000 years ago, by ancient Chinese astronomers, who recorded a bright light forming in this area. They witnessed was a supernova - a dying star. At the heart of the Crab Nebula is the pulsar, the skeleton of the dying star. Although we cannot see it with a telescope we can listen to the radio waves it emits as it spins. We can listen to the song of supernova.

You can enjoy looking for Orion, his hunting dogs, Taurus and the unicorn Monoceros throughout the early evenings of March. Now I'll hand over to Gabriela who'll tell us what planets we can see this month and features of the skies to the south.

This is probably my favourite time of year to look at the Southern Skies because you can stay out late without either freezing to death or being eaten alive by mosquitoes and the most important objects stay high in the skies for longer. The Full Moon will occur mid-month on the 12th of March. So the beginning and end of March are excellent times to explore the deeper sky objects that you can only see from the southern hemisphere.

Turning to the south horizon we look for the kite shaped Southern Cross constellation Crux. The Crux will be low in our South Eastern sky in early March after sunset. We can use the pointer stars, red-orange Alpha Centauri and blue-white Beta Centauri to identify the true Southern Cross.

As night progresses, the Southern Cross journeys around the southern celestial pole, bringing with it the dark patches stretched out through our view of the Milky Way. Here these patched represents the Giant Moa -a now extinct large flightless bird native to New Zealand. These dark patches are where large interstellar objects, called Dark Nebulas, have blocked out the light from more distant stars - preventing their light reaching us here on Earth. Dark Nebulae are easily seen against the backdrop of the Milky Way as the large concentration of star-light surrounding them lets us see them better. The head of the Moa sits by the Crux, nearby Beta Cruxis and the Jewel Box Cluster. This dark nebula is usually known as the Coalsack nebula. Much like coal itself it could one day ignite as it becomes an active stellar nursery, shining up as one of the brightest sections of our skies.

Following the Moa's ascent, Scorpius rises in the east. In Maori starlore we know it as the legendary fish hook of Maui. Where the Milky Way bulges, next to Scorpius, is Sagittarius A - the Galactic Centre - where we have the brightest view of our own galaxy. From the Galactic Centre we receive intense radio feedback from the super-massive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way.

Using the Southern Cross we can find, Canopus, the second brightest true star in our sky. It is part of the Carina constellation, the keel of Argo Navis. The ship that used to dominate the night sky as the largest constellation. In March it is located above the Crux. In the centre of this constellation is the Great Carina Nebula which houses the giant red dying star Eta Carinae. It once illuminated our night sky as one of the brightest stars for a short period of time after it undertook a massive event known as an imposter supernova. Now this hardy star, encased in the Homunculus Nebula, has faded and can only be seen through a telescope.

The globular star cluster 47 Tucanae will be high in the sky and faintly spotted to the naked eye by the tenth brightest star, the pancake star Achernar (It's spinning so fast it's flattened itself out a bit). Globular clusters are fascinating things. Their structure allows us witness stellar interactions but also allows us to pinpoint the smallest and faintest stars. The large bright stars are at the core while the outer stars are fainter creating a unique and beautifully ordered structure found only in globular clusters.