Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, October 7,
2011.
This is the week of the full Moon, the
"Hunter's Moon," which takes place almost perfectly in North
America the night of Tuesday, October 11, as it rises in mid-
evening. It's similar to September's Harvest Moon, in which the
eastern evening ecliptic lays
rather flat to the horizon, which gives us a lot of early evening
near-full Moonlight. Go watch and enjoy. With the Sun not far to
the east of the Autumnal Equinox
in Virgo, this full Moon will be
equally distant to the east of the Vernal Equinox and firmly in central Pisces, whose dim stars it will wipe out.
Prior to that lovely event, the Moon starts the week well into its
waxing gibbous phase, while after full our
companion begins the waning gibbous,
moving ever farther to the north.
Many are the visitations. The night of Wednesday the 12th, the
Moon will rise almost directly above (to the northwest of)
Jupiter. After passing five degrees north of the planet during
the following day, the Moon will then rise to the left (to the
northeast) of Jupiter the evening of Thursday the 13th. Earlier in
the week, respectively on the night of Friday the 7th and during
the day on Monday the 10th, the Moon glides six degrees north of
Neptune and Uranus, the latter now just a couple degrees east of the
Vernal Equinox in Pisces. On Wednesday the 12th, the Moon also
goes through apogee, where it is farthest from Earth.
Jupiter and Mars still
rule the planetary sky. Jupiter appears first, rising around 7:30
PM Daylight Time in mid-twilight. Ascending ever higher, it
crosses the meridian to the south
around 2 AM. Half an hour or so earlier, Mars comes up, the red
planet now to the southeast of Cancer's Beehive
cluster. What of the other planets? For some time now out of
sight in the
Sun's glare, on Thursday the 13th, Saturn goes through
conjunction with the Sun, thereafter becoming a morning object,
though still hidden in bright twilight. Venus, which will make a glorious evening sight in the
western skies this winter, is still too low to be readily visible,
Mercury worse.
