Overlapping stellar seasons in October
There’s so much going on this month for stargazers, including great lunar conjunctions and cover-ups. One of the great meteor showers also puts on a show.
October is a transitional month, both in terms of the weather and stargazing. Through the course of the night, summer, autumn and even winter constellations will dance across the heavens along with bright planets. Along with all that, the nights get even longer, making October a stargazer’s dream.
Summer constellations are still putting on a show in the early evening southern and western Butler sky. Look high up for the bright stars: Vega, in the constellation Lyra the Harp; Altair in Aquila the Eagle; and Deneb in Cygnus. The stars Vega, Altair and Deneb form the Summer Triangle, an asterism that serves as a great tool to help you navigate your way in that part of the heavens.
One of my favorite little constellations in the same area is Delphinus the Dolphin. It’s diminutive and faint but well worth finding. Just look a little to the left of Altair in the early evening heavens. You’ll love it!
With its distinct orange-red color, the extremely bright summer star Arcturus spends October evenings in the western sky. Arcturus is the brightest star in the entire evening sky in October and the brightest in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman, which looks much more like a giant kite with Arcturus lighting up the tail. Arcturus is 37 light-years away from Earth, or just under 215 trillion miles away.
Another summer constellation holdout is Sagittarius the Archer, in the low southwest sky. According to Greek mythology, Sagittarius is depicted as a centaur, a creature that’s part man from the waist up and part horse from the waist down, complete with a tail. Good luck seeing that! What it really looks like is a teapot pouring its heavenly brew on the southwest horizon.
If you’re stargazing away from light-polluted skies, you’ll see a ghostly ribbon of light arching up from the teapot in the southwest to the northeast horizon, nearly cutting the early evening sky in half. That’s the Milky Way band, the thickest part of our home galaxy. The center of our Milky Way galaxy is in the area just above the teapot’s spout in Sagittarius.
In the eastern skies is the grand autumn constellation Pegasus, the winged horse. Look for a giant diamond of stars on the rise in the east. Just to the upper left of Pegasus is the constellation Andromeda the Princess, the constellation that hosts the Andromeda Galaxy, the next-door neighbor to our home Milky Way galaxy. It’s more than 2 million light-years away. You can certainly find it with a small telescope, and even with the unaided eye in super dark skies. It’ll appear as a tiny patch of faint light.
The beautiful planet Saturn is also part of October evening skies this year, already above the southeastern horizon. It’s easy to spot, since it’s the brightest starlike object in that part of the sky. Saturn is usually outstanding through even a small telescope with its vast ring system and many of its moons, especially Titan, the moon larger than the planet Mercury.
The moons are still great, but unfortunately, our present view of the very thin ring system — less than 50 feet thick on average — is far from great. That’s because it’s nearly on edge from our view on Earth. This occurs every 14 years due to the alignment of Saturn and Earth in their respective orbits around the sun. The good news is that the angle of the very thin ring system will begin to open after this year and continue to improve over the next several years.
Don’t let that discourage you because Saturn’s still one of the best telescope treasures of the night sky. You can easily see many of its moons even with a small telescope.
The full moon on Oct. 7 is considered the Harvest Moon, as it was the closest full moon to the autumnal equinox last month. It’s also a “supermoon” — according to pop culture and media hype artists — because it’s physically a little closer to Earth than average. Honestly, the full moon will appear only a little larger in the sky, and, as it is with any full moon, for about four nights on either side of it, serious stargazing will be hampered by all of the moonlight spoiling the dark backdrop of the celestial dome. Two nights before the full moon, on the Oct. 5, Saturn will be in a close celestial hug with a very fat gibbous moon, just two degrees to the moon’s lower left.
The best meteor shower of October — and one of the best of the year — is the Orionids, which peaks in the early morning of Oct. 21. You could see 20 to 30 meteors an hour, from midnight to morning twilight, especially in the darker countryside. There won’t be much interference from the moon since it’ll be down to only a waning crescent.
They’re called the Orionids because the meteors appear to emanate from the general direction of the constellation Orion, but they will appear all over the sky.
The best way to enjoy them is to lie back on a reclining lawn chair or a blanket on soft ground and roll your eyes all around the celestial dome. Most of the meteor trails will point back toward Orion.
The Orionid meteors are generated by the Earth in its solar orbit, plunging into a trail of tiny debris left behind by the famous Halley’s comet.
So much is going on in October skies this year. Let’s hope clouds stay out of the way!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
