Moon
Last Quarter 7th 00:00
-- 13:15
New 13th 06:47
-- 15:48 First Quarter 20th 12:37 -- 23:49
Full 28th 15:55 -- 07:37
This is winter, as
opposed to what we’ve had all summer long. That just felt like winter but this
is the real thing. We’ve even had snow in October, so the omens aren’t good.
However, the skies will be dark for longer and some of the best targets in the
sky will be available for our visual members and those of a photographic bent.
Planets
Mercury is available from the 20th to the 30th of this month at dawn in the ESE, rising from 30 to 90 mins before the Sun, so the later in the month, the better. However, the earlier the more interesting, as the phase changes from 3% (mag 3.5) on the 20th to 44% (mag –0.2) on the 30th.
On the 1st of
the month, Venus will rise at 3:45am, presenting a mag –4.0 – 13 arcsec disc,
with no bright stars in Virgo to compete, soon to be overtaken by dawn. On the
30th it will rise at 5am-ish, in the company of Saturn, 3° above and
to the right. However, on the 27th, they will rise within half a
degree of each other and will stay so till dawn. A good photo opportunity, with
a telescope of less than1000mm focal length.
Mars can be seen on the 1st,
in the west as it sets an hour after the Sun. Small at 5 arcsec and mag +1.2.
It will be visible all month in similar circumstances, though on the16th, the 3
day old Moon will get within 5° of it in the west.
Jupiter will rise on the
1st, at 6pm, a big 47 arcsec disc of mag –2.8, in company with the
almost full Moon, 3.5° to the right. So, though bright in it’s own right, burnt
out by that great polluter so close by. It will be up high in the sky all
month, and by high I mean almost 60° above the horizon. By month’s end it will
rise soon after 4pm, in twilight, and will be there all night, all month. This
is your best chance at observing and photographing it.
Saturn will rise on the 1st,
in Virgo, at 6:30am, 30 mins before the Sun. By the end of the month it will
have risen a couple of hours before the Sun before dawn overtakes it so not a
good month for Saturn, though it will have good company in Venus for the whole
month.
Uranus will rise on the 1st,
at 3:30pm as the Sun sets on the other side of the sky. It will be a tiny 4
arcsec blue disc of mag 5.7, and set at 3:45am. At the end of the month it will
rise during daylight so will be available from dusk till it sets at 1:45am. It
gets reasonably high in the sky (37° up), so try to see some of the moons,
remembering to look for them above and below the planet rather than on either
side as with Jupiter and Saturn.
Neptune will be pretty
much due south as the sky darkens enough to see it’s even smaller disc (2
aecsec and mag 7.9), but it will set at 12:15am, giving you a reasonable length
of time to observe. By month’s end it will be well past due south at sunset so
leaving much less time to observe as it sets before 10:30pm.
Meteor Showers.
The Leonids is the only
shower of consistent note this month, characterised by bright fast meteors, and
occasional fireballs. Appearing to come from the Sickle of Leo and peaking on
the 17th-ish. In the past there have been meteor storms of great
note produced by this shower, but this year’s forecast isn’t likely to be one
of those years. The Moon won’t be a problem to observing.
Comets.
None visible naked eye this month. 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.