SKYWATCH

October 1995

by Steve Stefanik

This is the month of the full Hunter's Moon which occurs on the night of the 8th. Due to the shallow angle of the moon's path with respect to the ecliptic, the full moon rises early in the eastern evening sky this time of year thereby extending the hours of light by which our ancestors could once hunt (which is no longer permitted after sundown).

As the sun sets, three planets align themselves diagonally above the southwestern horizon. Look for the brilliant -1.9 magnitude creamy white planet Jupiter above the "J" of Scorpio. Look twenty-five degrees to the right and lower than Jupiter for the ruddy red +1.4 magnitude planet Mars. Twenty-five degrees to the right and lower than Mars, the planet Venus returns to the evening sky. See if you can catch a glimpse of it just above the western horizon before it sets 30 minutes after sundown. If you have trouble locating them look for them near the waning crescent moon on succeeding nights of the 25-27th. Once you locate them, you may notice them getting closer to one another with each passing night, on their way to a November conjunction.

Mercury joins the trio in the west during the first week of October but passes between the Earth and the Sun and reappears in the eastern sky in the predawn hours the rest of the month. Like the moon, due to the shallow angle of the ecliptic, the ordinarily elusive planet makes it's best appearance for 1995. Look for the bright -0.5 magnitude yellow-orange planet 18 degrees to the right and 11 degrees above where the sun will rise 30 minutes before dawn on the 20th.

Uranus and Neptune are still in eastern Sagittarius but this will be the last month for good viewing as they set slowly in the southwest.

Saturn on the other hand, is well placed for viewing high in the southeast as night falls. Still at a bright magnitude +0.8 the rings can be seen through binoculars or a small telescope as a thin white spear stuck through the planet's equator. You may also be able to make out several of it's moons, Dione, Rhea, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, and Titan in varying alignments.

October is also the month for the reknowned Orionid meteor showers which are so named because they appear to radiate from the constellation Orion. Although not as proliferous as the more famous Perseid or Geminid meteor showers, look toward the east after midnight for perhaps as many as 25 bright streaking fireballs per hour beginning on the 16th, peaking on the night of the 22nd-23rd, and continuing through the 27th as we pass through the wake of Comet Halley. The good news is that the timing for this year's event couldn't be better, peaking during the new (no) moon. The bad news is that Orion is a winter constellation which is just over the horizon.