October Night Sky Events

October is a good month for observing. The sky is darker earlier, it's still not terribly cold outside (we hope), and there are different objects to see. For example, the Orion constellation is up and with it, the Orionid meteor shower.

On Oct. 8 at about 6 a.m., Venus should be shining brightly near the eastern horizon. Below that, depending where you are, you might spot Mercury and Saturn. By Oct. 13, at about 6:30 a.m., Saturn will have moved to the upper left of Venus. On Oct. 16, in the eastern sky, just before dawn, there should be a conjunction with the crescent Moon and Venus and Saturn. Then on Oct. 26 or 27, the Moon and Jupiter should be in conjunction at just three degrees apart.

A major event this month is the lunar landing of the LCROSS lunar rover. I believe it should be visible if you have a 10" or larger telescope. There is a countdown clock on the right side of this page.

Another important event this month is the RASC Saskatoon Centre open house at the Sleaford dark site. It is located about 65 kms east of Saskatoon and offers great celestial viewing. This event will be held on Friday, Oct. 23 and Saturday, Oct. 24. There will be a convoy of cars leaving from the east end of the Saskatoon Field House parking lot at 7 p.m. on both nights. The Sleaford site is operated jointly by the RASC Saskatoon Centre and the U of S Department of Physics and Engineering Physics. RASC club members will set up their own telescopes, in addition to the U of S telescopes that are setup there. For more information call 966-6429. Make sure to take warm, weather appropriate clothing.

Additional viewing events for October:

Oct. 7 - Moon 0.1 deg N of Pleiades (M45)
Oct. 8 - Draconid meteors peak; Mercury 0.3 deg S of Saturn
Oct. 10 - Moon 1.2 deg N of M35 (open star cluster in Gemini)
Oct. 12 - Occultation of the Moon and Mars
Oct. 13 - Moon at perigee (369067 kms)
Oct. 15 - Zodiacal light visible in eastern sky before morning twilight for the next two weeks
Oct. 21 - Orionid meteors peak
Oct. 25 - Moon at apogee (404166 kms)

Finding Planets Easier

Below is a chart that a guy made from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. His name is Brian Battersby. It is a helpful resouce for locating planets. It was all to do with the Sidewalk Astronomer's Program which is a program of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.


The image below is showing a conjunction in the Eastern sky involving the Moon, Venus and Mercury about 45 minutes before sunrise on June 19th.

New Moon Pictures

These were taken over a span of about 3 hours tonight. There was a haze over the Moon. I took these while waiting to try and capture the Moon and Pleiades conjunction. These are untouched photos. They do appear slightly out of focus, but I would attribute that to the haze. Photos were taken with Nikon D80 with 1.5x tele-converter and 70-300mm lens.

Moon, Jupiter, Venus Conjuction

The photos below were taken at about 8:00 at night on December 1, 2008. They were taken with a Nikon D80, 28-80mm lens. Not the greatest photos, but it was neat to be able to capture this interesting event.




I lightened the picture below a bit to see the Moon better.