Star Talk: October is a great time for viewing
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
SILOAM SPRINGS ó October will present some of the best weather all year for the nighttime enthusiast. Mild, calm days followed by cool, somewhat damp nights will be the order for the month. This is great weather to get out at night with binoculars, any scope you have or just your eyes.
The astute observer will see the summer Milky Way wheeling overhead, south to north. If you have young children and they have never seen the Milky Way, now is the time to take them to a dark site about 9 p. m. and show them the starry train formed by arms of our home galaxy. You can tell them there are literally millions of stars along this path in the sky and that they lie literally many trillions of miles away.
If the children can hold binoculars, they will see even more wonders. With a lounge pad, a blanket, perhaps a snack and certainly insect repellent ñ one can spend a wonderful evening just gazing around.
While wandering about the sky, look directly south as October begins and you will see gigantic Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. It is about 10 times the size of Earth, made almost entirely of light gases, and the brightest object, besides the moon, that you can see in the evening sky now.
You might also spot Venus in the southwest just after sunset. Venus is about the size of Earth, and it is perpetually covered with white clouds. This makes our ìsister planetî shine very brightly by the reflected light of the sun.
In a telescope, Venus looks like a cue ball with phases. Notice, too, that sunset is getting earlier and earlier as fall comes on, and then winter. Only several weeks ago, the sky wasnít really dark until after 9 p. m. Fall is a good season for amateur astronomers because they can get an earlier start at their observing runs.
If you get up around dawn, you might see Saturn in the southeast. This would take an unobscured horizon, and it would be a challenge. A few months ago, Saturn was the main wonder in the night sky. Now, because of the motion of the Earth around the sun, from our perspective, Saturn disappeared behind the sun but has now emerged as a morning planet. Saturnís famous rings are closing up dramatically now because both the Earth and Saturn wobble in their orbits. When these wobbles are lined up just right, we look directly at the edge of the rings, and they disappear from our view.
Have a great fall. With all of the turmoil on Earth, it can be relaxing to look at the steady night sky, above all our troubles.
David Cater is a professor at John Brown University in Siloam Springs and has been an avid stargazer for more than 45 years. He can be reached at dcater @ jbu. edu.
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