Oct 01 Th 17:05 Full Moon (Harvest Moon)
Oct 02 Fr 13:09 Venus-Regulus: 0.1◦ S
Oct 02 Fr 23:21 Moon-Mars: 0.8◦ N
Oct 09 Fr 20:39 Last Quarter
Oct 11 Su 8:27 Moon-Beehive: 2.2◦ S
Oct 13 Tu 19:10 Mars @ Opposition
Oct 13 Tu 19:57 Moon-Venus: 4.4◦ S
Oct 16 Fr 15:31 New Moon
Oct 22 Th 13:10 Moon-Jupiter: 2.1◦ N
Oct 22 Th 23:49 Moon-Saturn: 2.7◦ N
Oct 23 Fr 9:23 First Quarter
Oct 25 Su 13:14 Mercury Inferior Conj.
Oct 29 Th 11:13 Moon-Mars: 3.3◦ N
Oct 31 Sa 9:49 Full Moon (Blue Moon)
Oct 31 Sa 11:05 Uranus @ Opposition
Meteor Showers:
Draconid Draco (N) Oct. 7 10-100/hr 21P/Giacobini-Zinner
Orionid Orion (SE) Oct. 21 10-20/hr 1P/Halley
Mars watch: Mars at opposition on October 13. Only 38.595 million miles from Earth. Mars is rising in the east at around 8:00pm. Won't be this close or bright again for a while so get out during October and take a look!
Blue Moon on October 31 (Halloween) will not happen again on Halloween until 2038! So, this is rare event indeed!
Jupiter and Saturn are still very nice objects to observe.
Note: After dark you can observe Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, and Jupiter through most of October.
Venus is up in the eastern morning sky!
On Oct. 20, our NASA's OSIRIS-REX Asteroid Sample Return Mission will descend to the rocky, boulder-strewn surface of asteroid Bennu, touch down, attempt to collect a sample, and go back to a safe distance away.
In September we asked, "On which planet will you find the tallest mountain in the solar system?"
Answer: Olympus Mons on Mars
October's Question: What was the first spacecraft to land on Mars?
Hydra is the largest constellation. It covers 1303 square degrees, or 3% of the celestial sphere.
The recent California wildfires burned down the main observatory building of the Tri-Valley Stargazers astronomy club outside of San Francisco. Check out their website, and maybe help them to rebuild:
Tri-Valley StargazersOur October meeting will be a Zoom meeting at 7pm on Monday the 5th. Chris O'Brien (that's me) will give a presentation about Electronically Assisted Astronomy which will include a demo of processing planetary images.
We will also vote on changes to the club's bylaws.
Here's the info for joining the meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83044795557?pwd=Uy9ldUJ0RnlwczJOYnRQMXo3Z05nUT09
Meeting ID: 830 4479 5557
Passcode: 304394
Question: What type of telescope is best for: planetary viewing, Deep Sky objects, Astrophotography?