What's Up in the Night Sky - October

Fred Barrett | Oct 04, 2012

By Fred Barrett

The Mars rover Curiosity is living up to its name and discovering fascinating info on the red planet – stream beds and maybe life millions of years ago! Watch for the latest NASA updates and keep track of what is being discovered on a daily basis.

Another exciting object in the night sky is Jupiter. It is prominent in the east and a wonderful sight with its 4 brightest moons strung around it. If you have a telescope, you will see the belts that gird the planet shifting their size and shape as time passes. Look for the great Red Spot in the upper left of the sphere of the planet. Depending on the optical arrangement of your telescope, the Red Spot may be inverted and mirror image reversed. But it is very noticeable.

We have 2 meteor showers this month. The Taurids run through October and November. The Taurids are a long lasting shower because the comet debris (comet Encke) that provides the material for the shower is spread over a broad portion of the sky. The debris stretches over a long portion of its orbit around the Sun. On any given clear night you have a good chance to see more than a dozen Taurid meteors per hour flash across the sky. The Tunguska fire ball that devastated an area in northern Russia in 1908 was a Taurid meteor.

The other shower this month is the Orionids. They are bits of Halley’s Comet and are vivid in the sky from October 20th to the 24th. This year there may be more than usual. In previous columns I have mentioned that the radiant, or spot in the sky that the meteors appear to come from, is named after the constellation closest to that radiant. The Orionids radiant is close to the top of the constellation Orion. Don’t forget that meteors can be seen all across the sky. The radiant is just the starting point.

If you are an early morning person, the Zodiacal light will be easy to see about an hour and a half before sunrise in the east from the 13th to the end of the month.

Very close and to the left of the waning Moon on the 12th have a good look at Venus. She will be a headlight in the sky. On the 18th to the 22nd Mars will be very close to Antares in the southwest an hour or so after sunset.

The full Moon is at the end of the month and if you grow garlic like I do, then you should have it under the ground by then. This Moon is called the Full Hunter’s Moon. If you have heard the duck hunters going at it early in the morning as I have when I’m walking my dog Maggie, then you understand why it’s called the hunter’s Moon.

Here’s an interesting note: Pluto has 5 moons. Charon is the largest and the Pluto system bears a likeness to our Earth and Moon system. A planet similar in size to the Earth collided with our planet eons ago and punched off material that eventually formed our Moon. Something similar probably produced the extra debris and moons around Pluto.

This is the best season for Astronomy. We have cool and clear nights. Please email me and perhaps you can come by and see some of the wonders of the sky. There are 2 observatories in my area now and the skies are nice and dark. Come on out and enjoy the Universe!

If you have questions or suggestions, Fred Barrett may be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Beginner’s Observer’s Guide by Leo Enright is available at the Sharbot Lake Pharmacy or by contacting the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada www.rasc.ca/publications, subscriptions for our very own excellent Canadian astronomy magazine, Sky News, are also available from RASC..