Moon
Last Quarter 8th 23:52
-- 14:56
New 15th 07:32
-- 17:47First Quarter 22nd 14:45 -- 00:00
Full 29th 16:15 -- 06:37
I'm having troubles with the weather this year, all out of kilter, winter when it should be summer etc. So should we expect summer when it should be winter? Hardly I suspect. However, the only thing of surety is that the nights will be longer and give us more time to observe. Hopefully the skies are clear enough to allow us to do that. Whatever the weather brings put on your silly hats, trousers, long johns and salopettes and come out to play.
Planets
At the end of this month
we put the clocks back and gain more observing time, though we have been
gaining over the last two months.
Mercury is unavailable
this month. It does get reasonably far from the Sun, but will set at the same
time, so it will not be dark enough to find.
On the 1st of
the month, Venus will rise, in Leo, at 3:15am, presenting a 71% lit, bright mag
–4.1 disc. It will have Regulus for company, 2.5° away. Dawn will overtake it
by 7am. At the end of the month Venus will rise at 3:45am, giving us 3 and a
half hours of observing time before sunrise.Mars is too close to the Sun so is unavailable this month.
Saturn is also too close
to the Sun to be observed.
Jupiter rises on the 1st
of the month at 9:15pm. A 43 arcsec disc of mag –2.6. It gets to be 57° high at
due south and is overtaken by dawn soon after. On the 31st, it rises
at 6:15pm, a little bigger at 47 arcsec and brighter at mag –2.8. It will be
due west before dawn catches it, going on to set further north. So a long time
and a high pass over the sky suggest a good apparition this year.
Uranus rises on the 1st
at 6:30pm, almost due east. It will rise to 38° above the southern horizon then
set at 6:45am. Pretty much from dusk to dawn. On the 31st, it rises
at 3:30pm but won’t be visible till dusk releases it at about 5:30pm. It will
set at 3:45am.
On the 1st of
the month, Neptune rises at 5:45pm, rising to 24° above the southern horizon
and sets at 3:15am. At the end of the month it will rise at 2:45pm and set half
an hour after midnight.
Meteor Showers.
The Orionids is the
shower of note in October. The Moon will be helpful, having set on the other
side of the sky before midnight. The sky should be dark too. So dress warm and
take your garden lounger outside and look up. Or take it down to Austerfield
where we may be having a meteor watch, yet to be planned.
Comets.
None, again. But you can look for yourselves
on the Minor Planets site. http://minorplanetcenter.org/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/index.html
The latest from a few years
ago, are listed there. Click on one for the ephemeris. If you like it, download
it as a KML file by clicking on the KML file link. Then click on it on your
desktop, which is where it’ll land when it gets to your machine. Click on it
there and it will ask you to run google earth then to change it to google sky
and the path of the comet will be drawn across the google sky for you. Don’t
bother with any that show a mag number larger than 7 or 8. Most on the list are
more than 15, which is very faint indeed.
In addition to all this
there is excitement about a “bright” one recently discovered, that may give us
a visual comet in the near future. As to how bright, who knows. And when? If
timings are right, this time next year. It’s still a long way off and very
faint, but coming almost directly towards the Sun, which should make it bright
when it gets here.
For details of satellites
check http://www.heavens-above.com and for sky charts call me at observatory@donastro.org.uk
.