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Jupiter -
Just look to the southeast after sunset for the big, bright "star."
That's the planet Jupiter.
Yea give me a break! I see it every night!
Venus, Saturn and Mercury - Look low in the east about an hour or so before sunrise. Saturn and Mercury are only about one third of a degree apart. (As a comparison, the moon is about one half of a degree in diameter.) Venus, far brighter than Saturn and Mercury, shines about 6 degrees above them. [So Venus will be 12 moons above Saturn and Mercury.] [Saturn and Mercury will be about a moon apart] Again I see Venus every morning. I didn't know that Saturn and Mercury will soon be below them.
October skywatch: Meteor shower and Jupiter by John Stanley - Sept. 22, 2009 06:45 PM The Arizona Republic Fall has finally arrived, bringing comfortable, mostly cloud-free observing conditions for Arizona star-gazers. One of the more interesting fall constellations is Capricornus, perhaps the weirdest mythological being ever imagined - part goat, part fish. The way star charts depict it, though, it looks more like a child's drawing of a boat. However you envision it, Capricornus is easy to find right now. Just look to the southeast after sunset for the big, bright "star." That's actually the planet Jupiter, which is passing through the constellation. Jupiter, always a terrific sight through a telescope, is well positioned for evening viewing throughout October. Jupiter's four largest moons are visible, even with binoculars; backyard telescopes will reveal several of Jupiter's atmospheric bands, which appear as faint, parallel rows of pink and cream. Meteor shower Although the Orionid meteor shower is spread over several nights, it peaks between 2 a.m. and dawn on Oct. 21. You might see 20 or more meteors an hour if the weather is clear and you're observing away from the glare of urban light pollution. The Orionids seem to radiate out of the constellation Orion, the Hunter, but may appear in just about any part of the sky. To tell if a meteor is an Orionid, trace its path backward. If that leads you to Orion, the chances are quite good that the meteor was part of the shower. Moon and planets Venus, Saturn and Mercury put on an interesting display in the pre-dawn sky throughout October. Look low in the east about an hour or so before sunrise as, day by day, the planets' positions relative to one another shift. On the morning of Oct. 8, Saturn and Mercury are only about one third of a degree apart. (As a comparison, the moon is about one half of a degree in diameter.) Venus, far brighter than Saturn and Mercury, shines about 6 degrees above them. By the morning of Oct. 13, Venus and Saturn have moved to within about half a degree apart. Be sure to look on the morning of Oct. 15, when the crescent moon hangs well above and to the right of the planets, which by then are more strung out - bright Venus in the middle, with Saturn above and Mercury well below and slightly to the left. An even thinner crescent moon appears to the right of Venus the next morning. Spaceflight anniversary Apollo 7, crewed by Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele, and commanded by veteran astronaut Wally Schirra, lifted into orbit on Oct. 11, 1968. The first manned flight of the new Apollo spacecraft came 21 months after the deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White in the Apollo 1 fire. Apollo 7's 11-day mission paved the way for Apollo 8's flight to the moon later that year and the Apollo 11 landing in 1969. Schirra, who died in 2007, was the only astronaut to have flown Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. |