Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, October 22, 2010.
We begin the week with the bright full
Moon, which takes place the evening of Friday, October 22,
shortly after the sky is fully dark, allowing us to see the near-
perfect phase face-on. It's a beautiful sight even if it does
block out the much fainter starlight, full Moonlight about a
millionth as bright as full sunlight. The Moon then immediately
begins to wane in the gibbous phase,
rising ever later each night. Watch early in the week as it plows
through Taurus and past Aldebaran. The night of Sunday
the 24th is especially good as the Moon will be seen passing to the
south of the Pleiades (Seven
Sisters) star cluster, though you will need binoculars, as the
lunar brightness will make the stars difficult to see. Closest
approach will take place in the morning hours of Monday the 25th
before dawn.
While the Moon passes through opposition with the
Sun (the full Moon rising at sunset), Venus
does just the reverse, as it finally passes through inferior
conjunction with the Sun on Thursday the 28th, rendering it very
difficult to see. Though it will be between us and the Sun, it
passes nearly 7 degrees to the south, completely missing a transit (the next one taking place June
6, 2012 and then not again for a long long time, not until December
of 2117).
Mercury and Mars are out of
sight as well, though with some diligence you might spot Saturn,
which rises about as dawn begins to light the morning sky. The
ringed planet is now moving through Virgo to the south of Porrima (Gamma Virginis) well to the
northwest of Spica. That once
again leaves us with Jupiter, whose glory and visibility more than make up
for any other planetary lack. Well up in the east in evening
twilight, Jupiter now crosses the meridian high to the south around 10:30
PM, as it moves slowly south of the Circlet of Pisces
almost exactly on the Pisces-Aquarius border. Look with binoculars for much fainter
Uranus about three degrees to
the northeast of it.
The range of the stars of the Andromeda myth is huge, running tens of degrees across
the sky. The story begins at the western end with Pegasus and its Great Square, which is nicely
visible north of bright Jupiter. The set of figures then climbs to
the northeast through Andromeda, finishing at the eastern end with
the star-streams of Perseus. To
the north, find Cassiopeia with her
prominent "W," to the south Cetus, the Sea Monster, which swims into the depths of
the sky's southern hemisphere.
