00:00October's night sky is putting on a spectacular show and you don't even need a telescope to see it.
00:05Here are four incredible sky watching sights that you can witness with the naked eye over the coming
00:09month. First up, the Moon and Mars are set for a breathtaking rendezvous in the early morning
00:14hours of October 5th, when the 30% lit lunar crescent rises above the eastern horizon a little
00:19over an hour after midnight for viewers in the US, with the red planet shining just a few degrees
00:24away in the autumn sky. The Moon will appear to drift away from Mars over the next few hours
00:28before finally ending the night close to the glowing stars of the Beehive Cluster in the
00:32heart of the constellation Cancer. Our next sky watching highlight comes in the hours preceding
00:37dawn on October 6th, when the Moon passes directly in front of the gas giant Jupiter hiding its light
00:42in a spectacular display of orbital mechanics for millions of stargazers spread across the eastern
00:47United States. Next, the Orionid meteor shower reaches peak activity overnight on October 21st to 22nd,
00:54as Earth plows through the trail of debris left behind by Halley's Comet.
00:57NASA estimates that anywhere from 10 to 20 shooting stars might be seen brightening the early morning
01:03sky as the shower hits its peak, though the light cast by the 74% lit waxing Moon is likely
01:08to obscure
01:09fainter meteors from sight. Orionid meteors are best viewed in the hours between midnight and dawn,
01:15and will appear to streak away from a point of origin close to the red supergiant star Betelgeuse,
01:20or Betelgeuse, or whatever you want to call it, in the constellation Orion. Now don't look directly at the
01:25radiant. Instead, find a patch of sky about 45 degrees away and upwards, where the glowing
01:30trains left in the wake of the meteors will be at their most spectacular. Finally, we turn our gaze
01:35to October's full hunter moon, which stalks over the eastern horizon to flood the autumn sky with
01:40reflected sunlight on the night of October 25th to 26th. The October full moon is traditionally known
01:46the hunter's moon, because its light helped hunters track their prey long into the night, according to
01:50the old farmer's eminor.
