A reason to look up: October astronomy events

AccuWeather

October's night skies will offer a dynamic array of astronomical phenomena, including high-visibility planetary alignments and an active meteor shower resulting from Earth's passage through cometary debris.

Transcript

00:00We're going to look up to the stars now a little bit.

00:02October night skies are full of activity from bright planets to spectacular meteor showers.

00:08Jupiter and Venus will be especially prominent this month.

00:13And joining us now to break it all down is Chris Palma,

00:15Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University.

00:19Welcome on back.

00:21We're going to start off with our first thought here.

00:24The planets, where and when can we spot things like Jupiter and Venus in the sky?

00:30So last month we talked about Saturn, right?

00:33And we talked about Saturn being high in the south.

00:36This month what's going to happen is that Jupiter is just a little bit to the southeast

00:41and then Venus low in the southeast.

00:43So right now, early in the month, Jupiter is rising at say 1 a.m., 2 a.m.

00:49and Venus is up just before sunrise.

00:52But as the month progresses, Jupiter is going to keep getting higher and higher and higher

00:57and rising earlier.

00:58So look to the southeast around midnight, then around 11 p.m.

01:04and you'll be treated to this really bright Jupiter in Gemini.

01:08And Chris, I know you're going to be excited about this.

01:12My telescope is together.

01:14So we are ready and you're getting me ready for my calendar.

01:18Let's talk about how the visibility of Jupiter changed from the beginning to the end of October.

01:24Yeah, so the planets, right, so they're moving around the sun the same way we are.

01:32But what's happening is we're moving around the sun too.

01:36So Jupiter right now, you have to be an early morning person like I know both of you are.

01:41You get up early.

01:42You can see Jupiter low in the east.

01:44But as October goes on, it's just going to rise earlier and earlier and earlier.

01:49And so by the end of the month, it'll start getting pretty high in the southeast.

01:53And it won't rise quite so early.

01:56So if you're one of those folks out there at 11 p.m. or midnight,

02:00just look for the brightest thing you can see in the southeastern sky.

02:04And that's Jupiter.

02:05Now, Venus is actually moving closer to the sun, I assume, away from us.

02:10So what does that mean for its appearance this month?

02:14Yeah, so Venus moves so much faster than Jupiter.

02:19So it's going to be low.

02:20Like if you think of where you see the sunrise,

02:23Venus will be sort of right in that same patch of sky around 630 in the morning.

02:28But because, like you're saying, it's moving towards the sun,

02:30as the month goes on, what you're going to see is that

02:35Venus is actually rising a little bit later and later and later.

02:39And then towards the end of the month, we won't be able to see it as well

02:41because by the time it's up in the sky, so is the sun.

02:45And the sun will basically block it.

02:46But for most of October, right around sunrise,

02:49you should be able to see it very low in the sky,

02:52right near where you're looking for the sun to come up.

02:54All right, I've noticed the moon waxing, correct?

02:58Yes, it's been waxing over the next couple of days.

03:01Now, October 6th brings the harvest moon.

03:04Why is this full moon special compared to others?

03:07And this should be a highlight on my telescope, shouldn't it?

03:11Oh, absolutely.

03:12And I think I've said before,

03:14but if you've never looked at the moon through a telescope,

03:17it is a beautiful, beautiful sight.

03:19But what's really special and why we call this the harvest moon,

03:23you know, we just passed the equinox.

03:25So we're at the time of year where we're getting roughly 12 hours of daytime,

03:29roughly 12 hours of nighttime.

03:31But the full moon is exactly opposite in the sky from the sun.

03:36So the full moon rises at sunset.

03:39It's at its highest point around midnight,

03:41and then it sets around sunrise.

03:44So you can think of the sun goes down,

03:46and just as the sun goes down,

03:48the moon's coming up in the opposite part of the sky.

03:51And so just as it's starting to get dark because of sunset,

03:54the bright, big full moon rises and keeps it bright into the night.

04:00So all those folks who had to harvest crops,

04:03a big harvest, you need to be up for hours,

04:06you could keep harvesting into the night

04:09because the harvest full moon keeps the sky bright enough

04:12that you can actually see for most of the hours after sunset.

04:17Set.

04:42Set.

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