Monthly Night Sky Report: October 2023

        Introduction

    September was a great month for stargazing as I could finally get out my telescope not only once but twice! Unfortunately, both outings took place in bright city lights but were still worth the effort. The first weekend didn't go as well as I had hoped, but the following weekend was great. I could view the planets Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, and the Moon. I also viewed M13 (Hercules Cluster), M57 (Ring Nebula), the Double Cluster in Perseus (NGC 869 and NGC 884), and M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), all objects that I have previously viewed. I also targeted a few new objects, including Almaak (or Almach), a multiple-star system comprised of a bright yellow and blue star, and the Owl Cluster ( NGC 457) in Cassiopeia. These objects were spectacular and are definitely on my short list of items to view the next time I have the telescope out. I could view Venus, Jupiter, and Orion in the morning sky with unaided eyes. As the rising Sun brightened the sky, I could also see the Belt of Venus.  

    There are a few special events during October, so I hope the good weather continues. October will bring the return of the Orionid Meteor Shower, which will peak under favorable conditions this year. This month also brings an Annular Solar Eclipse or "Ring of Fire" Eclipse, which will favor viewers in central Utah. See the link in my September mid-month post or later in this post. There will also be several conjunctions between the Moon and the planets. Read on for the details!

             

Mercury

     Mercury can be viewed in the morning sky during early October. Observers with a clear view of the eastern horizon before sunrise will see Mercury shining at magnitude -1.0 on the first and continue to brighten for the first week of October. The innermost planet will lose altitude as the month progresses, becoming lost from view after the first week, and will reach conjunction with the Sun on the 20th. Mercury will return to view in the evening sky next month. 

  

Venus

    Venus will be easy to spot in the morning sky and visible all month. This bright planet will start the month off in Leo and can be found near the Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, on the 10th. A thin crescent Moon will join the pair on the same morning. As the month advances. the stars of Leo will appear to be running away from Venus while the stars of Virgo approach. During the New Moon phase, Venus can be used as a guide to find the zodiacal light. A dark sky site is a necessity. Simply look east to find Venus and a dim cone-shaped glow can be seen rising towards the zenith.  

    

Mars

    Mars will be lost from view during October as it lies too close to the Sun to be viewed. The Red Planet will be found in the morning sky when it returns in December.

Jupiter

Saturn

     

    As October begins, Jupiter rises above the Wasatch Front around 9:30 PM, depending on how close an observer is to the mountains. A nearly Full Moon can be found just 3° away on the 1st and 29th of the month. By the end of October, Jupiter will rise two hours earlier as it nears opposition. Jupiter is a joy to view through a telescope, binoculars, or unaided eyes. Weather permitting, October will be a great month to view Jupiter as it is still usually warm enough to enjoy stargazing.     

    Saturn will be in a great position in the evening sky to view throughout October. The ringed planet will be above the horizon after sunset and should be easy to spot in the southeast sky. The Moon will be within 3° of Saturn on the 24th. A small telescope will reveal the rings of Saturn and its brightest moon, Titan. A dark sky or a larger telescope will reveal other moons of the ringed planet.   

   

       

Neptune

Uranus

    

    The two ice giants can be viewed through binoculars but will look their best through a telescope. Uranus will rise within an hour of Jupiter. A nearly Full Moon will join this planet in the sky on the 2nd and 29th of this month. The pair will be found with only 3° of sky separating them. The Pleiades will be about this same distance away from Uranus throughout the month. 

    Neptune reached opposition in September and will be above the horizon after sunset. Observers must wait a few hours after sunset to view this dim planet. The Moon will pass close by on the 25th, just 1.5° away.        

Comet, Zodiacal Light, Eclipse, Meteor Shower 

    

    Another comet, Comet Encke, can be viewed in the early morning hours before sunrise. This comet will require binoculars or a telescope to view. It may also be captured in a long-exposure image. Encke can be found just to the north (left) of Regulus in Leo the Lion during the first morning in October. Recall that Venus will also be near Regulus. Encke will brighten and sink closer to the eastern horizon as the month progresses. On the 12th, Encke can be found in Virgo with a nearly New Moon found less than a degree away. By the 20th, Encke will be too close to the horizon to be viewed in the brightening morning sky. 

      The zodiacal light can be viewed in the dark morning sky before sunrise. The best time to view this phenomenon will come close to the New Moon phase, around the 14th of October. The zodiacal light will appear as a cone of light extending from the eastern horizon to the zenith. Venus can be a guide as the light will brighten the sky along the ecliptic. 

    Utahns will be able to experience an annual solar eclipse during October! This type of eclipse occurs when the Moon is at or near apogee (furthest distance) in its orbit around the Earth. At this time, the disk of the Moon is too small to completely cover the Sun, leaving a "ring of fire" in the sky. Central Utah will be one of the best locations to view this eclipse. The Moon will begin to pass in front of the Sun at about 9:10 AM on the 14th. The maximum eclipse will occur at 10:29 AM and end at 11:57 AM. I recommend using a pair of solar glasses or the appropriate solar filters for a telescope or binoculars. A kitchen colander may also be used if this gear is not readily available. Suspend the colander about 20 inches above the ground and look at the projection of the Sun on the ground. DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN THROUGH THE COLANDER!! For the best results, project the image on a bright, clean, smooth surface, such as a piece of white paper or a white blanket/sheet. Use this link for Time and Date to find an ideal location for this eclipse. I will be traveling to Richfield, Utah, for this experience. I want to capture some images of this event and other astrophotography images, and if everything goes according to plan, they will be shared in a future post.

    October will also bring the return of the Orionid Meteor Shower. As the name suggests, this meteor shower will appear to radiate from the constellation of Orion. The Orionids will peak on the 21st during a first quarter moon. The best time to view this shower will come after midnight when Orion can be found high in the sky, and the Moon has sunk below the western horizon. During the peak date, observers can expect to see up to 30 meteors per hour if located at a dark sky site. The meteors from the Orionids are brought to us by the debris left by the famous Halley's Comet.      

 

Monthly Breakdown

  

October 01: Moon passes within 3° of Jupiter

October 02: Moon passes within 3° of Uranus

October 06: Last Quarter Moon🌗

October 10: Moon passes within 6° of Venus

October 10: Venus within 2° of Regulus   

October 14: New Moon 🌑

October 14: Annular Solar Eclipse begins at 9:10 AM

October 20: Mercury reaches superior conjunction

October 21: Orionid Meteor Shower peaks

October 21: First Quarter Moon 🌓

October 23: Venus reaches greatest western elongation

October 24: Moon passes within 3° of Saturn

October 25: Moon passes within 2° of Neptune 

October 28: Full Moon 🌕

October 29: Moon passes within 3° of Jupiter

October 29: Moon passes within 3° of Uranus 

         

Now get outside and look up!

Planet images were taken by NASA.

Andrew vs. the Cosmos was taken by Jeff Greenland.

    

Midmonth Check-In: September 2023 and the Sun

   

Introduction and Monthly Reminders   

    

    Aside from the occasional cloudy skies and rain showers, which have occurred on the evenings I plan to stargaze, September has ultimately been clear and a great month to be out under the stars. I hope the clear skies will continue and occur on a night that works for me so I can finally use my telescope! I could see Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus with my unaided eyes. I was also able to experience two confirmed sightings of Starlink. The satellite train is fantastic, but it ruins the night sky. 

    September will still bring the chance to see many planetary conjunctions with the Moon, the greatest western elongation of Mercury, Venus reaching its greatest brilliance of 2023, the Autumnal equinox, and the newly discovered Nishimura comet. Nishimura recently made its closest approach to the Earth and was visible in the morning sky. The comet will now be visible in the evening sky shortly after sunset. I recommend going to a dark sky location with an unobstructed view of the western horizon to see this comet. Nishimura should be able to be captured with either a smartphone or DSLR camera by taking a long exposure image.

The Sun   

    

   Many things have changed since I last did a tour of our solar system, so I decided to do an updated version! Over the next several months, I will highlight the main parts of the solar system in my mid-month posts. This month, I will start with the Sun at the center of our solar system. 

    Roughly five billion years ago, gas and dust began to coalesce into a small mass. As the mass grew, so did its gravity, pulling in nearly all of the gas and dust from what is known as the solar nebula. The gravity was so great that hydrogen molecules began to fuse together in the core, creating helium. This fusion process generates massive amounts of energy, which is given off as light and heat. The Sun was born.

    The Sun is so massive that all of our solar system's planets, asteroids, comets, and other debris could easily fit inside. In fact, the Sun makes up 99.8% of the total mass of our entire solar system! It would take approximately 100 Earths to span across the equator of the Sun and 1.3 million of our tiny planet to fill the volume of our star. To put this into perspective, if the Sun were the size of a basketball, the Earth would be about the size of a small bead. The Earth's gravity prevents anything on the surface from flying away. Similarly, the gravity from the Sun holds our solar system together, causing the planets, asteroids, and comets to orbit this star instead of drifting away. The Earth is only 93 million miles from the Sun, about 8.3 light minutes, but the force of gravity from our star can be felt about two light years away!

    The Sun is the largest object in our solar system. Surprisingly, our star is only average in size and brightness compared to other stars. Stars come in different sizes and colors, such as red and blue giants and red and white dwarfs. In a future post, I will go into more detail about the types of stars. The Sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star and has different layers. The layer we see from Earth is known as the photosphere. The photosphere is approximately 250 miles thick and can reach temperatures close to 10,000° Fahrenheit! Above the photosphere is the chromosphere and the corona. All three of these layers make up the Sun's atmosphere. The atmosphere is where we can see solar flares and sunspots. 

    Like the planets that orbit our star, the Sun orbits the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Sun travels about 450,000 miles per hour and completes one full trip around the Milky Way in 230 million years. Like the planets in our solar system, the Sun rotates about an axis. Since the surface of the Sun is not solid like the rocky planets in the solar system, different regions rotate at different speeds. The region near the equator of the Sun completes one rotation every 25 Earth days. The regions near the poles spin a bit slower and complete a full rotation once every 36 Earth days. 

    Like many planets in our solar system, the Sun has a magnetosphere that creates a magnetic field. The Sun's magnetic field is similar to a bar magnet, with a north and south pole. However, every 11 years or so, the Sun's magnetic field flips, causing the North Pole to become the South and the South Pole to become the North. This 11-year period is known as a solar cycle. Each cycle has a solar minimum when the Sun is typically quiet with little to no sunspots, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), or solar flares and a solar maximum when the Sun is more active. In 1755, scientists began to track and record the solar cycle. We are currently on solar cycle 25 and approaching solar maximum. Many current predictions suggest that the solar maximum will occur in July 2025, while others predict solar maximum will occur at the end of 2024. Either way now is a great time to buy some solar glasses or solar filters for a telescope or binoculars to safely view our star!

    Solar glasses and filters are also ideal for any type of solar eclipse. Utahns can view an annular solar eclipse on 14 October 2023. The prime locations will be south of Salt Lake City. Check out this link for Time and Date to find an ideal location. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is at its greatest distance from the Earth and cannot block the entire disk of the Sun. This leaves part of the Sun exposed and appears as a "ring of fire" in the sky. Next year, North America will experience a total solar eclipse on 08 April. Unfortunately, Utah will not be in the path of totality for this eclipse. Utahns interested in viewing this eclipse will have to travel to an ideal location that can be found on this map from Time and Date.

    Now for the bad news. The Sun is going to die...eventually. Scientists predict that our star has lived about half of its life and has another 5 billion years left. The Sun does not have enough mass to explode in a supernova but instead will collapse into a white dwarf. As the Sun runs out of energy, it will expand and turn into a red giant star. When this happens, the Sun will be so large that it will swallow up the inner planets, including the Earth. The Sun will then collapse back down before expanding again. After doing this a limited number of times, our star will finally collapse into a white dwarf star about the size of the Earth. Fortunately, this cycle is billions of years away, so observers are safe to view the Sun for eons to come. 

    There are currently several missions that are studying the Sun. These include the Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, SOHO, Solar Dynamics Observatory, and STEREO. Please take the time to visit these websites to learn more about each solar mission. My current favorite mission is the Solar Dynamics Observatory because it shows what the Sun looks like in real-time. This lets me know if today would be a good day to view sunspots before setting up all my gear. 

    Check back at the beginning of October for my next Monthly Night Sky Report.   

    

 

    

Now get outside and look up!