The drier, cooler weather of October brings with it improving conditions for sky-watchers!
Here are some night-sky highlights this month:
- 6 — New Moon. With the moon absent in the night sky, this is the best time to make that (safe) trip to the Everglades to view “deep-sky objects” such as nebulas, star
clusters, and galaxies!
- 7 — Draconids Meteor Shower. Although not one of the premier meteor showers, it’s one of the few that performs well before midnight. And, with moonlight being a nonfactor, it might be worth a trip to a dark location to try to witness a “shooting star” or two.
- 16 — Launch of the Lucy Mission on a ULA Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. Amazingly, this spacecraft will visit eight different asteroids over the course of 12 years, seven of which orbit the sun on either side of the planet Jupiter (so-called Trojan asteroids).
- 20 — Full Moon, aka the Hunter’s Moon.
- 25 — Mercury at its best. You don’t get that many chances each year to catch a glimpse of this small world, but the morning of the 25th is as good as it gets. It will be found low in the Eastern sky just before sunrise, so get the coffee brewing early!
- 29 — The brightest planet in our sky, Venus, will dazzle throughout October but will reach its highest perch on the evening of the 29th. It will be visible halfway up the Western sky (470) just after sunset. If the sky is clear, you simply won’t be able to miss it! (And you will understand immediately why so many ancient cultures made it their goddess of beauty.)
- 31 — Launch of the SpaceX Crew-3 Mission on a Falcon 9 rocket will send four astronauts inside a Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. So, if all goes as planned, there’ll be a dragon in the sky this Halloween! 😉
Happy viewing, friends!