Skywatch October 2002

These scripts are written by members of the Albany Area Amateur Astronomers and read by the staff of the Dudley Observatory. All scripts are copyright and may not be reproduced without permission of the writer and the Dudley Observatory. Scripts are published to the web in the week following their recording. Daily scripts may be heard by calling 518-382-7584 after 5pm.

 

 NOTE: Times given in the scripts are all local Schenectady, New York time.

Tuesday, October 1st. Written by Jonathan Cassidy.

Nights this week the nights are dark as we are with a waning moon. The new moon occurs on Thursday October 6th. This is a good week to go out with binoculars or just your eyes and look at the smaller constellations of late summer.

Of all the constellations only a few are easy to make out the creatures the names suggest. The constellation Delphinus the Dolphin is one of the easiest. A leaping Dolphin is easy to find in this group of stars if you can find the group.

Directly over head each night, once it is dark, the bright star Deneb can be found, it is part of the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Do not confuse it with the brighter star Vega to the west. South of Deneb is the bright star Altair, of Aquila the Eagle.

Take a line between these and slightly to the east is a group of four stars of similar magnitude making a tight diamond with an additional dimmer star to the south. This is the constellation Delphinus the Dolphin.

To the west directly north of Altair is a short line of stars about as large as Delphinus. Find that the line has single stars of equal magnitude in a line on the east side and two dimmer stars together on the west. This is the shaft and feathers of an arrow. This little arrow is the constellation Sagitta and is the arrow shot by Sagittarius the Centaur Archer.

Wednesday, October 2nd. Written by Ray Bogucki.

The small constellation Lyra shines near the zenith at nightfall. Lyra's brightest star, Vega, is joined just to its southeast by four stars forming an elegant parallellogram. Beginning with the star nearest Vega, and proceeding clockwise, the four stars are designated as zeta, beta, gamma and delta. Each one is interesting in its own right. Zeta is actually a fairly close pair of stars, a pretty sight in a small telescope. Across from it lies delta, a much wider pair designated as delta-1 and delta-2. A careful observer can easily separate them without optical aid. Binoculars, however, show that there are many other stars in the immediate vicinity. Studies of the motions and colors of these stars indicate that they constitute a very young, loose open cluster which, at 800 light-years distant, is one of the closest open clusters to the Sun.

Halfway along a line between gamma and beta, the two bottom stars in the parallellogram, lies the planetary nebula known as the Ring Nebula. This is a favorite target of amateur astronomers and is probably the most famous planetary nebula in the sky. Planetary nubulae are not connected to planets in any way, but received their descriptive name because they appear in a telescope much like a planetary disk, only much fainter. The oval-shaped Ring Nebula resembles a smoke ring or ghostly donut with bright outer edges and a dark center. It is the remains of an old star in the final stages of its life. Very hot burning of the carbon core of the star caused the outer layers of the star to be blown off as a huge, expanding bubble of gas. Ultraviolet emissions from the tiny hot core at the center causes the gas in the bubble to fluoresce in visible light, making the bubble visible to us. Lengthy photographic exposures show the outer edges of the bubble glowing with red hydrogen radiation. The body of the ring is yellow, while the inner edges show the green color of ionized oxygen. Recent detailed images of the Ring Nebula from the Hubble Space Telescope are simply breathtaking.

Thursday, October 3rd. Written by Alan French.

If you get up before sunrise Friday morning, you have a chance to catch a pretty crescent Moon, and the planets Mars and Mercury. If you look due east tomorrow morning you will find a pretty crescent Moon 20 degrees above the eastern horizon. (If you hold a fist at arms length, the distance across the knuckles is 10 degrees.) You'll need a fairly good view toward the east to see the Moon, but you will need an even clearer horizon to see Mars and Mercury, both of which are below the Moon. Mars is almost directly below the right side of the crescent Moon, and is a bit more than half way down to the horizon. The catch a glimpse of elusive Mercury, you'll almost certainly need a pair of binoculars. Focus carefully on Mars, then move the binoculars downward until Mars is in the top of the field. Mercury should be in the binoculars just above the horizon, but haze or a horizon that is a bit too high may make it impossible to see.

If you succeed in finding Mercury, try looking again on Saturday morning at 6:15 AM. A very old crescent Moon will be just to the left of and a little bit higher than Mercury. You may well need binoculars to spot this thin ghost of a Moon.

When you are out looking for the Moon and these two planets, you will probably notice a bright star about 45 degrees above the east-southeastern horizon. It is the brightest star in the eastern sky, and is actually the planet Jupiter. If you have binoculars, focus them carefully on Jupiter. If you see faint points of light next to Jupiter you have spotted some of Jupiter's four bright moons.

Weather permitting, the Albany Area Amateur Astronomers will host public Star Watches this coming weekend. At Star Watches a variety of telescopes are set up for your viewing pleasure, providing views of galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, and pretty double stars. Friday night's program is at the George Landis Arboretum in Esperance, and begins at 8:00 PM. Saturday nights Star Watch is in Indian Meadows Park in Glenville, also beginning at 8:00 PM. Star There is no admission charge and all ages are welcome. Watches are canceled if the skies are mostly cloudy. Call Alan or Sue French at 374-8460 for more information.

Friday, October 4th to Sunday, October 6th. Written by George Mileski

The moon on Friday October 4th is just a thin crescent. On Sunday the moon is new. In the west there is just one planet, Venus, very low on the horizon, it sets less then an hour after sunset. This is a good time to look at Venus with binoculars, it looks like a thin crescent. There are four planets in the morning sky, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and now emerging over the horizon is Mercury. Mercury is below Mars and is very low on the horizon. 45 minutes before sunrise on Friday look for the crescent moon with Mars and Mercury below it. 

The conditions are good to see the zodiacal light for the next two weeks in the east before twilight, but you need to be in a very dark area. The Zodiacal light is a faint glow in the sky, roughly triangular along and near the ecliptic. Its a reflection of sunlight from dust grains in our solar system.  

Why is the moon exactly the same apparent size from earth as the sun? The moon and sun have virtually the same angular size in our sky, because the sun is about 400 times wider than the moon but its also about 400 times further away. This allows us to see spectacular coronal displays and prominences during total solar eclipses. All this is just a coincidence of our time. Interestingly this has'nt always been the case. There are tidal interactions that cause the moon to move about one inch per year away from the earth. In the distant past, the moon was close enough to earth so that it could block the sun's entire disk and then some. Our prehuman ancestors would not have witnessed the beautiful coronal displays that we now enjoy. And about 50 million years from now the moon will be far enough away, so that our descendents will only see annular eclipses. Its important to note , however that even today some solar eclipses are annular because the earth and the moon have elliptical orbits.  

Monday, October 7th. Written by Joseph Slomka.

The Sun sets tonight at 6:26 PM; night falls at 8:00. Dawn breaks at 5:26 AM and ends with sunrise at 7:00 PM.

Just after Sunset, look to the West. If you have an unobstructed horizon, two objects are on the verge of setting. Brilliant Venus stands only five degrees above the horizon. The brand New Moon lies to Venus' right. While Venus is preparing to depart our skies, the Moon is just entering the night sky. Venus is a thin crescent, so is the Moon.

By 8:00 PM, the constellation Sagittarius lies due South. Neptune and Uranus, the giant planets beyond Jupiter, are best seen at this time of the year. Both can be seen in binoculars, but appear as tiny dots. Only with a moderately sized telescope and a detailed star chart, can one distinguish the planets from a myriad of stars.

By Sunrise, Saturn is well up in the East, with Jupiter about halfway between Saturn and the horizon. Saturn rose shortly before midnight; Jupiter rose two hours later. While both are great telescope objects, Jupiter and its moons can be seen in ordinary binoculars. Mars and Mercury hover just above the horizon, within the same binocular view.

This month marks the Five Hundredth Tenth Anniversary of Columbus' arrival in North America. There is another, less noticed, aspect to this voyage. Columbus, although convinced that Earth was round, sailed into uncharted territory. He had only hourglasses for timekeeping, a compass and an ancient Arabic instrument known as the Astrolabe. He had only a vague idea of his location. He misplaced Cuba several hundred miles due to inaccurate measurements. As new empires were being developed by the Spanish, Dutch and English, large prizes were offered for the development of accurate navigational techniques. As a result, more accurate clocks, instruments, star charts and tables were developed to assist sailors. Today, the art of celestial navigation is replaced satellite systems that can place a person or ship to within feet of any desired location.

Tuesday, October 8th. Written by Jonathan Cassidy.

The slim crescent moon is visible tonight shortly after sunset in the west. It will set quickly following the sun leaving us with a dark night. Let us find one of the dimmest objects available to the naked eye.

Directly over head are two bright stars. Deneb at the top of the sky and brighter Vega to the west of the zenith. Further to the north east is the familiar "W" of Cassiopeia. Take a line between these two stars and follow it to the east a little more than that distance between the stars. This brings you to a star that is not as bright as Deneb. This is alpha Andromeda. See the line of Andromeda to the north east of this star. Go out this line one dim and one same brightness star and take a right (east) going that way two dim stars.

If you are in a dark sky place you will see a patch of light that is not stellar. That is it is not a point of light but a hazy place. If you look at this patch with averted vision it will brighten and be easier to see. Put binoculars on this patch and see how large it is.

This patch is the Andromeda Glx. It is 2,900 light years away and is larger than our home galaxy the Milky Way. Watch this area as it approaches the zenith of the sky and this galaxy will become easier to see.

Wednesday, October 9th. Written by Ray Bogucki.

While waiting for the appearance of the brilliant constellations of winter in the northeast, evening observers might turn around and bid farewell to some of the departing summer constellations in the southwest. Ophiucus (off-ih-YOU-cus), the Serpent Bearer, is a large constellation lying directly above, or north of Scorpius, and just below, or south of Hercules. In Greek mythology, Ophiucus is associated with the god-physician Aesculapius, son of Appollo, who became so good at medicine that he began bringing the dead back to life. Jupiter, worried that the Underworld would be depopulated, killed Aesculapius with a thunderbolt. Then, in atonement, he raised him into celestial rank in the night sky.

Actually, the most prominent star pattern in Ophiucus resembles an old fashioned coffee percolator with its brightest star at the peak of the cover and its handle to the left. Seven Messier objects, all globular clusters, are sprinkled throughout the constellation.

In October of 1604 A.D. when the bright planets Jupiter and Saturn lay close together near the lower left corner of the coffee pot, a brilliant new star, brighter than Jupiter, suddenly appeared next to them. It proved to be the last supernova seen in our Milky Way galaxy. It was extensively studied by Kepler and came to be known as Kepler's star. Since a supernova explosion typically occurs every few hundred years, we are overdue for the next spectacular death of a supergiant star in our galaxy.

An entirely different kind of star can be found close to the left shoulder of the coffee pot. Barnard's Star is a faint red dwarf star, 2000 times less luminous and much smaller than the Sun. It is the second closest star to our Sun, and, at magnitude 9.5, is easily visible in a small telescope. It has the fastest apparent motion across the sky of any known star. In just one year, it will travel across the background of more distant stars 10.3 arc-seconds, three times the current diameter of the disk of the planet Mars.The discovery of this rapid motion destroyed the long-held belief that all stars were fixed and immobile.

Thursday, October 10th. Written by Alan French.

The Sun set tonight at 6:22 PM. After sunset you will find a pretty crescent Moon low in the southwestern sky. The Moon will set tonight at 9:18 PM and the rest of the night will be dark and moonless.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the International Space Station at 11:17 AM on Wednesday morning. Although they will not be high in our sky, the pair will be visible twice tonight. Both passes of the International Space Station and Atlantis will be low in the northern skies, so you will need a place with a good low horizon to the north and northwest to see the pair.

The first pass of the ISS will begin at 6:50 PM when the ISS will appear above the northwestern horizon. Look for a star that appears to be moving toward the north. The ISS will be highest just after 6:52 PM when it will be due north and 16 degrees above the horizon (a fist held at arms length is 10 degrees across the knuckles). Satellites are easiest to spot as they approach the highest point in the sky, so if you missed to ISS coming up in the northwest make sure to look due north at 6:52 PM. The ISS will vanish above the NE horizon just after 6:54 PM.

The skies will be darker for the second pass of the ISS over our area and it will appear slightly higher. The ISS will first appear at 8:26 PM above the northwestern horizon. It will be highest, and easiest to see, just before 8:28 when it will be 21 degrees above the north-northwestern horizon. Look for a starlike object moving toward the northeast. Just after passing its highest point the ISS will fade from view as it moves into the Earth's shadow.

If you miss the ISS tonight, there will be even better chances to spot it on Sunday night, October 13, and Tuesday night, October 15. Look for it high overhead on Sunday night at 7:44 PM, and just after 7:20 PM on Tuesday night. You can visit www.heavens-above.com for more detailed predictions.

Friday, October 11th to Sunday, October 13th. Written by George Mileski

The moon on Friday October 11th is a waxing crescent moon. The moon is at first quarter on Sunday. In the west Venus is getting harder to find, when you do see it, it is very low on the horizon. Venus sets less then an hour after sunset, so look for it right after sunset, you might need binoculars. In the morning sky one hour before sunrise check out Mars with Mercury just below it, just a bit to the left. On Sunday Mercury reaches its greatest elongation, 18 degrees from the sun and 31/2 degrees from Mars. The planet Saturn rises about 10:00PM, so by dawn it has moved well to the west. Jupiter rises about 1:30AM, so it is quite high in the sky by dawn. Jupiter is in the constellation Cancer and Saturn is in Orion. 

In the evening, the constellation Pisces, the fish is raising in the eastern sky. The constellation lies close to the celestial equator, so it rises nearly due east and sets nearly due west along your horizon, which it does around sunset and sunrise at this time of year. Because the constellation is faint, with no star brighter than about 4th magnitude, you'll need a dark sky to trace its pattern. First look for the great square of Pegasus, Pisces straddles the southeastern corner of the square. Just below the square is a noticable asterism, called the circlet. This circle of stars lies at the head of the southern fish. 

Although the stars of Pisces are faint, the circlet's compact shape makes it easier to see. If you follow the stars from the circlet eastward, they trace out a V shaped line of stars, very very dim stars. The two sides of this V represents the two fish in Pisces, sometimes called the northern and southern fish. A 4th magnitude star located at the point of the V represents the place where the two fish are bound. This is the brightest star in Pisces called Al Risha, from an Arabic word meaning "the cord". This star is also a double star. 

Monday, October 14th. Written by Joseph Slomka.

Tuesday, October 15th. Written by Jonathan Cassidy.

Waxing gibbous moon this week leaves us with a bright night. Not as many stars are visible at night this week than there were two weeks ago. The moon is in Aquarius. All the stars of Aquarius are dim and the moon over powers all of them.

To the northeast of the moon, due north later in the week, you will see among the patterns of stars a large square. There will seem to be little in this square on night like tonight. This is the Great Square of Pegasus, the flying horse. Two of the sides of Pegasus line up nearly perfectly with longitudes of the celestial sky. The stars marking these sides point very nearly toward Polaris the north star. Thus while the big dipper is very low on the horizon we have another set of stars that point to Polaris.

The set of stars of this square that are furthest to the east are also very near "0" hour of the 24 hour celestial clock. In the opposite direction they nearly point to the place in the sky where the celestial equator crosses the ecliptic, that path in the sky the sun follows.

It is where the celestial equator crosses the ecliptic that the celestial clock turns from 23 to 0 hours. Every 15 degrees east or west marks another hour. 15 degrees is marked by any person by extending their arm out fully and viewing the separation of pinkie to first finger at their greatest span.

Wednesday, October 16th. Written by Ray Bogucki.

The five bright planets that grouped together in our western evening sky last Spring are now all strung out along the entire length of the ecliptic. The only planet remaining in the early evening sky is Venus, presenting a slender crescent about 50% percent larger than the disk of Jupiter. It is difficult to find, hugging the southwestern horizon shortly after sunset and setting a half hour after the Sun.

The sky is then devoid of bright planets until about 10 p.m. when Saturn rises in the east after Taurus the Bull. Saturn has begun its retrograde motion and will slowly move westward through the stars for the next few months.

Three hours later Jupiter rises, shining brightly in the faint constellation, Cancer the Crab. When the first hint of morning twilight begins, and Jupiter is high in the eastern sky, Mars appears, rising due east followed a few minutes later by elusive Mercury in its best morning apparition this year. Mercury is beginning to drop back to pass behind the Sun, and by November, it will be lost in the Sun's glare.

Another solar system object will make its presence known next Monday night into Tuesday morning, when the Earth passes through the stream of particles left in the orbit of Halley's Comet. These particles, streaking through our atmosphere, will generate the Orionid meteor shower which is expected to peak around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning. The Moon will be one day past full and its bright light will seriously interfere with observing the usually modest number of meteors in the evening and the middle of the night. The best chance to observe this shower will be at 4 or 5 a.m. Tuesday, when the radiant in Orion, the point from which the meteors appear to radiate, is well up in the eastern sky, while the Moon is setting in the West. If you go out at that hour, try to locate the four visible planets as well as the meteors.

Thursday, October 17th. Written by Alan French.

If you are calling the Skywatch Line before 7:00 PM, you have a chance to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station tonight. Atlantis undocked from the ISS yesterday and the pair are traveling close together until the Shuttle lands on Friday. Watch for Atlantis to come up from the west-northwestern horizon just after 7:09 PM tonight. You may not actually spot the space shuttle until about 7:10 when it is higher and farther above the horizon. The ISS will follow about 15 seconds later. Atlantis will be highest at 7:12 PM when it will be 34 degrees above the southwestern horizon. The pair will be easiest to spot at this time. If you missed them coming up from the horizon, simply watch for a pair of starlike objects move along the southwestern horizon toward the south-southeast at 7:12 PM. Just be sure to set your watch to a reliable time source. The time shown on channel guides for cable or satellite television is quite accurate.

The Sun set tonight at 6:10 PM and will rise tomorrow morning at 7:13 AM. The Moon, now approaching Full, rose at 5:08 PM this afternoon and will not set until 4:21 AM tomorrow morning. If you are out around 7:00 PM you will find the Moon well above the eastern horizon and it will appear 90 percent sunlit. The Moon will be Full very early Monday morning, but you will find it looks quite Full over the weekend. Only a careful inspection will reveal that is not completely sunlit.

If you are out during the morning hours before sunrise you can easily spot Jupiter. Brilliant Jupiter, outshining all the stars in the area by a wide margin, is high in the eastern sky at 5:00 AM. Jupiter has four bright moons that are easy to see in virtually any telescope. Even a pair of binocluars may reveal up to four stars lying very close to Jupiter. If you have any type of telescope, you can see them easily. If your telescope or binoculars do reveal four stars roughly in a line near Jupiter, it may be that one or more of the moons is either passing in front of or behind the planet. Many amateur astronomers enjoy watching the moon's changing positions. One some nights all four might appear to one side of the planet. On other nights, there might be one or two on one side and the rest on the opposite side.

If you do try viewing Jupiter through a telescope, you may also notice some dark bands cross the planet. These are dark clouds in the thick atmosphere. Virtually any telescope should show at least two dark bands, and a telescope of 4" aperture or more should reveal other details in the planet's atmosphere.

Friday, October 18th to Sunday, October 20th. Written by George Mileski

The moon is a waxing gibbous one, it will be a full moon on Monday. The moon on Sunday is at apogee, which means its the furthest from earth at this time of the year, 252,500 miles away. Venus is still hanging in there but its very low to the horizon and sets about 15 minutes after the sun. To find it, look with binoculars just after sunset. You need a very clear horizon with no trees or hills in your way, I think thats just about impossible. 

In the morning sky an hour before sunrise, you'll see Mercury with Mars to the upper right above it. Looking higher in the sky you'll see Jupiter in the constellation Cancer, and Saturn in Orion.

Drifting among the stars in the galaxy's spiral arms are thousands of vast clouds of gas and dust called nebulas. Most of them are dark and invisible, sometime producing the dark rifts and patches that give the Milky Way its ragged segmented appearance. These clouds are the largest objects in the galaxy, massive celestial smog banks that block the light of millions of stars. Generally, their presence is revealed only by a scarcity of stars along certain sections of the Milky Way. Occasionally though they produce spectacular vistas when stars illuminate the normally dark veils of gas and dust. Nebulas are the galaxy's maternity wards, where new stars are being born.     

The process begins inside the nebula, where gas and dust collect in knots, this continues to produce denser clumps. Once a rapid infall of matter begins, a gravitational chain reaction is triggered. Atoms and molecules bang into each other and into the clouds of dust grains. All of this produces heat and the temperature soars. In tens of thousands of years, temperatures climb to 15 million degrees, the ignition point for fusion reactions, and a star is born. The infant star is called a protostar. One such nebula in our autumn and winter sky is the Orion nebula. This constellation rises about 10:00pm or so.   

Monday, October 21st. Written by Joseph Slomka.

The Sun sets tonight at 6:03 with twilight ending at 7:38 PM. Dawn breaks at 5:43 AM and ends with sunrise at 7:17. The just past Full Moon is up most of the night.

There no bright planets visible after sunset. Saturn rises before midnight, with Jupiter following about two hours later. These two giants are visible high in pre-dawn skies. For the binocular viewer, Jupiter lies only eight degrees below the Beehive Cluster. While they may not fit in the same view, their proximity make observing worth while.

Shortly before dawn, Mars and Mercury appear in the East. Mars is beginning its appearance for the year, while Mercury already dipping closer to the Sun. Both are found low in the sky, and may be hidden by trees or hills.

Another star cluster not washed out by the Moon are the Pleiades. This is another great binocular object. The cluster takes the shape of a mini dipper.

Tonight's main attraction will be washed out by the Moon. The annual Orionid meteor shower reaches its maximum, but the Full Moon will obscure all but the brightest meteors. Meteor showers are named for the constellation from which they stream. While meteors are seen all over the sky, if you backtrack their path, you will see that they seem to originate in Orion's club.

Annual meteor showers are caused by comets. Many showers are associated with known comets. As the comet approaches the Sun, gases and dust bubble off the surface, leaving a trail of litter. When the Earth crosses this trail, the dust particles enter the atmosphere and burn up. The result is brief burst of light. Most meteors are the size of dust grains. However, occasionally a larger piece enters our atmosphere and causes a "fireball." Unfortunately, for tonight's Orionids and next month's Leonids, the Moon spoils the view. Only the brightest meteors can be seen against the Moon's glare.

Tuesday, October 22nd. Written by Jonathan Cassidy.

The full moon appeared yesterday. To night is brightly lite with the moon casting shadows. Venus is also at it's brightest this week. It is very close to the sun now and sets soon after it. So look quickly after sunset to find it. Venus is now a crescent even in binoculars.

Only three objects in the sky present crescent shapes to us. The crescent moon is seen every month. Venus is seen this way in the morning or evening only once each per year. Mercury is the last of this group that can show us a crescent face but is so close to the sun it is difficult to see anytime.

From any place with a clear, unobstructed, view of the western horizon look for the only bright thing that pops into view shortly after sunset. This is Venus. Mercury is in this same area but has already set.

The reason why Mercury, Venus and the Moon show us a crescent is that they are in "inferior" position relative to the earth and sun. Inferior position means that they are closer to the sun than the earth is. If you noted this in the time of Galileo and drew the conclusions he did you may have been threatened with bodily harm by speaking against the accepted theory of that time. It is our hope that we know better now.

Wednesday, October 23rd. Written by Ray Bogucki.

The celestial show in the early evening skies alternates with the seasons, with bright constellations in the summer and winter, and less flamboyant groupings in the spring and fall. These autumn evenings, as your eyes move among the more obscure constellations, one grouping in the southeast stands out -- a large square of second magnitude stars known as the "Great Square of Pegasus", lying about 30 degrees east of the Northern Cross. This almost perfect square, measuring 15 degrees on each side, is fortuitously oriented along the celestial lines of right ascension and declination which correspond to terrestrial longitude and latitude, respectively. To visualize the celestial equator, the projection of Earth's equatorial plane onto the night sky, picture a line beginning at the due eastern horizon, passing parallel to and one square-width below the "Great Square", climbing to 47 degrees in the south and then arcing back down to the due western horizon. To find the point where the ecliptic, the path of the Sun through the sky, crosses the celestial equator, project the line forming the eastern side of the square an equal distance to the south. This point marks the spot where the Sun will sit next March 21 at the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring.

At a very dark-sky site, a sharp-eyed observer can see a dozen or so faint stars inside the square. In a more light-polluted suburban sky, one might make out a small grouping of two or three stars, near the center of the square, but in the typical, bright urban sky, the square appears completely empty.

Peering through this square "window" in the sky, a large observatory telescope would record hundreds of thousands of stars in our own spiral arm before exiting our galaxy. Then, sweeping past several relatively close galaxies at 50 million light years, the telescope's gaze would proceed to unimaginable depths where the light from several small objects of incomprehensible brilliance, called quasars, has been travelling to us for billions of years, carrying information about conditions in the the early stages of the universe.

Thursday, October 24th. Written by Alan French.

The Moon will rise at 7:55 PM in the east-northeast. The Moon was full early Monday morning and will be at third quarter early next Tuesday, so the Moon's visible face is more than half in sunlight and bright Moonlight will dominate most of the night.

The Moon will be 20 degrees above the horizon by 10 PM and visible to anyone with a good view toward the east. Even without optical aid, there are some interesting things to notice. Most obvious is the terminator, the line between the light and dark portions of the Moon. About 10 percent of the Moon - to the upper right at 10 PM - is in darkness now. Since the Moon is past Full, the terminator is the line that shows where sunset is occurring. The terminator is creeping very slowly to the left across the face of the Moon, but within the course of one night its progress usually goes unnoticed to the naked-eye observer. If, however, you look at the Moon again tomorrow night, you should be able to see a noticeable shift of the terminator to the left from tonight's position.

It is also quite easy to notice distinct light and dark areas on the Moon. The dark areas are called maria (MAR-ee-uh) which means "seas" in Latin. Galileo and other early astronomers assumed that the maria were bodies of water. We now realize that there is no water on the Moon. The maria are actually dark and relatively smooth plains caused by ancient lava flows that spread over the floors of huge impact basins.

The bright patches on the Moon show us areas where mountains and craters are found. Although these highlands make the Moon appear quite brilliant, the Moon's surface is actually rather dark. On the average, the Moon only reflects about 7% of the sunlight that falls on it. This means that the Moon's surface is approximately as dark as an asphalt parking lot.

When you turn a pair of binoculars toward the Moon, the view is wonderfully improved. If you can support the binoculars steadily, a few dozen craters and mountain peaks become clearly visible. Details are most obvious along the terminator. Since that is the sunset line, objects near it cast long shadows that make them stand out in bold relief.

With a telescope, changes are plainly visible in less than half an hour as the terminator proceeds in its slow march across the face of the Moon. This ever-changing vista can give anyone with even the most modest equipment a lifetime of observing pleasure. Observing the Moon with even a small telescope will reveal a wealth of detail, showing craters as small as four miles across.

Friday, October 25th to Sunday, October 27th. Written by George Mileski

On Friday the waning gibbous moon is located in the constellation Auriga with Saturn to its upper left. On Saturday the moon and Saturn are 3 degrees apart. Saturn is to the lower left of the moon. There are four planets that be seen in the night sky. About 40 minutes before sunrise, you can spot Mercury, which will be very low on the horizon with Mars above it, use binoculars. Continuing higher you will find Jupiter, which you can't miss, its so bright. Beyond Jupiter is Saturn in the constellation Taurus, Jupiter is in Cancer.

I was reading an article by Bob Berman the other day about some myths of astronomy. The moon does not pull on water or the oceans, but because water can flow, it can be easily displaced, which gives rise to the tides. The moon does not have a permanent "dark side" any more then earth does. What it really means is the moon's "far side".

Black holes do not go around sucking up stars or planets, there diet consists almost entirely of nearby sub-atomic particles. If our own sun collapsed into a black hole (which is not possible), earth would continue to orbit just as before. We would not be pulled in, in fact, we wouldn't experience the slightest increase in the sun's "pull", because its mass would remain unchanged, but of course we would freeze to death with no more sun to heat us.

The northern lights are not particularly colorful. Spooky, animated, incredible - yes. But many people say they see no color at all, while most perceive a pale green. Subtle pink fringes are sometimes detected but deep red is extremely rare. This myth is probably created by color photography, which brings out faint tints. Galaxies are mostly empty space. Stars are separated by such large distances that even when galaxies collide, their individual stars almost never do.

Sunday we move back to eastern standard time, don't forget to set your clocks back one hour.

Monday, October 28th. Written by Joseph Slomka.

The Sun sets at 4:53 PM with night falling at 6:28. Dawn breaks at 4:40 tomorrow morning, with sunrise taking place at 6:25 AM.

Now that Daylight Savings Time ends, night falls earlier, and makes observing more convenient; besides the earlier time, the lack of mosquitoes and flies make observing a pleasure. There are no easily visible planets. Uranus and Neptune lie due South on the Aquarius-Capricornus border. A telescope and detailed star charts are required to find them amid the myriad of stars.

By the end of twilight, bright constellations rise out of the East. Cassiopeia circles the North Pole, while Pegasus and Andromeda are well up and positioned for observation. Binoculars can spot the Great Andromeda Galaxy, a galaxy very similar to ours. Below Cassiopeia is the hero Perseus. Between Cassiopeia and Perseus is the binocular object, the Double Cluster. As the name implies, it is two very close star clusters in one field.

Midnight brings the first bright planet. Saturn appears between Taurus and Gemini, high in the East. The Moon is just clearing the trees, with the famous Beehive Cluster about two and a half degrees above it. Again, this is a great sight &endash; the Last Quarter Moon and a brilliant star cluster in the same binocular field.

As Dawn first breaks, Jupiter appears below the Moon. While binoculars alone cannot see details on Jupiter, they will spot its famous four Galilean moons.

Just before Sunrise, Mars is well up in the East to be spotted. Binoculars will help find the rather dim planet against the brightening sky. Below Mars, and possibly hidden by trees and buildings, Mercury pokes above the horizon.

At nightfall, Capricornus lies due South. Capricornus is a strange constellation. It begins a series of constellations that have some relation to water, Aquarius, Pisces, Cetus, Eridanus, and Pisces Austrinus. Capricornus is normally called the "Sea Goat." Obviously no such animal exists. The name "goat-fish" is of Sumerian origin; it represents the Babylonian god Ea, the god of the subterranean fresh water ocean.

Tuesday, October 29th. Written by Jonathan Cassidy.

A waning moon this week will leave us with dark skies again (before midnight) similar to the beginning of the month. Low in the west the seven sisters are rising each night when we go to bed.

The Pleiades is a true cluster of stars. Some groupings of stars are coincidental, that is they happen to appear together though in fact they are many light years apart. While other groups are close and gravitationally bound to each other.

The Pleiades are an example of the latter type. They are likely to remain together for a long time. It is probable that the stars of this group evolved together from one large cloud of gas. That cloud might have been shocked by a near by supper nova explosion. The shock wave would have condensed the cloud thus allowing local gravitational forces to continue the massing of gasses into the stars we see today.

If a planet could exist orbiting a star of the Pleiades and if there were intelligent life on a planet their ability to observe the night sky might be hampered by the other local bright stars of the cluster.

Here on earth with our single sun and no other near by stars of any brightness we have fine nights to observe the sky. Just turn off the deck lights.

Wednesday, October 30th. Written by Ray Bogucki.

Last night the Moon stood at last quarter and rose about midnight next to Jupiter. By next Saturday morning, the Moon will be a thin, waning crescent rising about 3:30 close to Mars. Mercury rises about 6 a.m. into a twilit sky a half hour before sunrise. While Mercury is preparing to disappear behind the Sun, Venus will pass in front of the Sun tomorrow at inferior conjunction. In ten days, it will be rising an hour before the sun, adding its brilliance to the morning twilight and triggering calls to local police stations by concerned citizens reporting an unidentified bright light in the eastern sky. A telescope will show the disk of Venus as a thin crescent twice the diameter of Jupiter. Venus will climb rapidly into the morning sky, reaching its greatest brilliancy and overtaking Mars in early December.

Next Saturday also marks the expected peak of the meteor shower known as the Southern Taurids. While the number of meteors usually observed in this shower is much lower than those in the more famous Leonid showers that occur later in November, the Moon will be new on Saturday, providing dark skies for the event. Ten days later, there will be a second peak in this meteor shower known as the Northern Taurids. The north-south distinction follows from the fact that the radiant, the point in the sky from which all of the meteors in a shower appear to emanate, lies close to the star cluster, the Pleaides, in Taurus for the northern Taurids, while the radiant for the Southern Taurids lies about 10 degrees south of that. Two separate radiants and two different meteor peaks strongly suggest two separate streams of cometary particles.

Both streams are believed to be associated with the very ancient, but faint, comet Encke, which orbits the Sun once every 3 and a quarter years. Fred Whipple of Harvard suggested that, as Comet Encke swung around only 30 million miles from the Sun 4500 years ago, there was a mass ejection of dust from the comet, followed by another mass ejection 1700 years ago. Over thousands of years, the orbits of these separate streams of debris have been perturbed differently by the gravitational pull of the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and even Jupiter, to provide two separate, but related meteor showers.

Thursday, October 31st. Written by Alan French.

The International Space Station sometimes passes over our area and is visible in the evening or morning sky. Often it is fairly low in the sky and never gets far above the horizon, but tomorrow morning the ISS will pass directly overhead for residents of the Captial District.

In the evening, satellites overhead are still in sunlight after the Sun has vanished below the horizon for us at ground level. In the morning, satellites overhead catch the light of the rising Sun before we do. The sunlight reflecting off the ISS makes it appear as bright as the brightest stars when it passes high overhead.

The Space Station will appear above the west-southwestern horizon just after 5:56 AM tomorrow morning. Often, satellites are difficult to spot until they are fairly well above the horizon, so you may not catch sight of the station until 5:57 or so. The ISS will be easiest to see at 5:59 as it approaches a point high overhead moving toward the northeast. Simply look for a bright star moving across the sky right overhead. After passing its highest point, the ISS will head for the horizon and will vanish from sight just after 6:02 AM low in the northeast.

Weather permitting, the Albany Area Amateur Astronomers will be hosting two public Star watches this weekend. At Star Watches a variety of telescopes are set up to show guests some celestial showpieces. These events are free and open to all ages.

On Friday night a Star Watch will be held at the George Landis Arboretum in Esperance beginning at 8:00 PM. Look for the Arboretum sign on Route 20 just after crossing the Schoharie Creek into Esperance. Follow the signs up the hill to the Arboretum. Continue past the parking area and farmhouse to the top of the hill. Take a right at the top of the hill into the Meeting House field.

On Saturday night a Star Watch will be held in Indian Meadows Park in Glenville also beginning at 8:00 PM. Indian Meadows Park is off of Droms Road. Once in the park bear left at the fork in the road past the first building. Star Watches are canceled if the skies are mostly cloudy. For further information call 374-8460.

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Dudley Observatory
107 Nott Terrace, Suite 201
Schenectady, NY 12308
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