Monday 21st to Sunday 27th October 2024
We had a full Moon last week, so if you venture outside and look towards the south just before daybreak on Monday 21st, say around 6am, you will see an 81%-lit waning gibbous Moon. Jupiter will be sitting just below the Moon, with Mars further to the left. At the same time, below the trio you will find the constellation of Orion and below that, Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
If you repeat the exercise at the same time a couple of days later, on the morning of Wednesday 23rd, you will have an almost identical view of the planets and Orion, but now the Moon will appear to be just to the right of Mars. This is because the Moon is travelling around us every month, relatively quickly, but your view of other objects is determined by our orbit around the Sun......and that takes a whole year, so your view of them will have only moved by two days.
Of course your view of things also changes because we rotate every 24 hours. Go back outside around 11pm on the Wednesday evening and the whole lot will be rising above the horizon again to the east, but this time, the Moon will be a little to the left of Mars.
Don't forget that Sunday 27th is the end of British Summer Time.....did we actually even have one this year? At 2am, the clocks go back an hour to 1am and we have an extra hour in bed.....or an extra hour's observing if you're a keen astronomer!
The autumn and winter months are always favoured because it gets dark earlier and the first of my astronomy talks at the Ham Hill Visitor Centre is coming up on the evening of Friday 8th November. Booking is via the Visit South Somerset website.
www.starsoversomerset.com
Screenshots courtesy of Stellarium
Copyright Adrian Dening and Radio Ninesprings 2024
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