This month sees the most rapid change of the spring in the day/night balance.

Daylight expands rapidly and we reach the Spring Equinox on the 20th, followed by the clocks going forward to British Summer Time (BST) on March 31.

All in all, it means that by the last day of the March the sun is setting at 7.30pm and civil twilight lasts until 8pm.

The equinoxes are known to be a good time for displays of the aurora (Northern Lights) when conditions are favourable, and this year that is certainly the case with solar activity rising towards its maximum.

Solar activity goes through an 11-year cycle and the next maximum is due later this year or in 2025.

The Sun is displaying an increasing number of groups of sunspots. The complex magnetic fields associated with these can produce flares, sending plumes of charged particles across space, which if they interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, can produce displays of the aurora.

The website Space Weather carries daily images of the sun and its sunspots, as well as alerts for the aurora.

Jupiter remains the only bright planet readily on view and it is now an evening object, setting soon after 10pm in mid-month.

On the 13th there is a fine pairing with the young crescent Moon in the West, best seen around 8pm.

With Full Moon on the 25th the best time for viewing the stars will be mid-month.

Looking to the East, Ursa Major, the ‘Great Bear’ is rising during the evening with its ‘tail’ pointing downwards and the fainter stars that make up its ‘legs’, pointing upwards (see map).

The constellation has been recognised for thousands of years, including being mentioned in the Old Testament.

Some of the stars in Ursa Major are part of a “moving group”, which means they share a common motion through space and are believed to have formed together in a stellar nursery about 500 million years ago, gradually separating ever since.

Our sun, which is around 10 times older, would have also formed alongside other stars, but which have long since moved apart.

Astronomers have tried to find the ‘sun’s siblings’ by looking for stars with very similar chemistry, but so far none have been confirmed.