The Sky This Week 2003 October 24 – 31

The Moon returns to the evening skies this week, brightening the neighborhood pathways for trick-or-treaters on Halloween. First Quarter occurs on the 31st at 11:25 pm Eastern Standard Time. Look for Luna’s slender crescent low in the southwestern sky in the twilight of the 27th. Can you spot the ruddy star Antares a few degrees to the left of the crescent? On the evening of the 29th she lies in the middle of the “lid” of the teapot-shaped asterism formed by the brighter stars of Sagittarius.

Remember to set your clocks back by one hour on the night of the 25th. This annual ritual is a boon to early risers, who for the last several weeks have risen to greet the day in darkness. We’ll now have earlier nightfalls, which means that evening skywatchers can get started a little earlier, and perhaps suffer less insomnia from late nights at the telescope eyepiece. We will now observe standard time until April 4th of next year.

October 31st is one of the special days in the astronomical calendar. This day falls about mid-way between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, and for centuries it was observed widely as a “cross-quarter day”, when peasant tenants paid rent to their noble landlords. These days were especially celebrated in Celtic Europe, and we still unwittingly observe three of the four. Halloween is perhaps the most well-known, followed by Groundhog Day and May Day. Halloween was considered the “darkest” of the cross-quarters, the night when spirits roamed the land before the dawn of All Saints Day, when they could once again rest for another year. This year a first-quarter Moon lights the sky, so if you have a telescope, set it up as an extra “treat” for the goblins in your neighborhood.

The planet Mars is still beaming away in the evening sky, but he’s fading from the brilliant glory of his close approach of late August. He is now only 25% as bright as he was at opposition, but at magnitude -1.3 he still commands attention. By the week’s end his disc will subtend just 15 arcseconds, some 10 arcseconds smaller than he appeared at his prime viewing time. Nonetheless, a small telescope should still reveal abundant surface detail to the patient viewer, so don’t give up on him quite yet.

Late-night trick-or-treaters can now glimpse the rising ringed planet Saturn in the eastern sky at midnight by the week’s end. By this time the stars of the Great Winter Circle have all cleared the horizon, and Saturn sits, unblinking, in their midst.

The return to Standard Time means that bright Jupiter now rises at around 2:00 am, so your best view of him will still be in the pre-dawn hours. Remember, though, that this means 5:30 am!

For more information eclipses, click
here.

For more information on meteor showers, click
here.

For more information on observable comets, click
here.

For pictures of Comet Hale-Bopp, click
here.

For more information on the digital planet pictures on this page, click
here.