October 19 – November 1, 2015
Mt. Washington — There’s very fortuitous timing for viewing dawn and pre-dawn sky extravaganzas these two weeks. Conveniently, the combination of Eastern Daylight Time (E.D.T.) and later sunrises each day result in night lasting far into the early morning. Time is an hour later by the clock than it will be November 1, when we “fall back” to Eastern Standard Time (E.S.T.). We may sleep an additional hour and still revel in the extreme beauty of the dark and twilit morning sky.
Four of the five planets that are visible with the naked eye are to be seen in the southeast, constantly rearranging their relationship to each other. Stunning planet Venus (-4.41 m) shines with bright Jupiter (-1.77 m) until about 6:45 tomorrow morning, 7 o’clock at month’s end. Note that the smaller the magnitude (m) number the brighter the celestial object.]
From the 19th through the 22nd, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are stretched along a diagonal line rather close together. Dimmer red Mars (1.74 m) is below Jupiter, fading out of view about 40 – 45 minutes before sunrise. Mercury (-.80 m) appears at the bottom of the diagonal. The little planet rises at 5:41 a.m. tomorrow and 4 – 5 minutes later every morning, later still accounting for time to rise above our hilly terrain. This week I’ll look for Mercury to pop over the hills to the southeast at my location about 50 minutes before sunup. It will be lost in sunrise glare as the month progresses.
Sunrise is at 7:12 tomorrow, sunset 6:04; sunrise 7:25 on the 31st, sunset 5:49: all Eastern Daylight Time (E.D.T.). On November 1, sunrise is at 6:26 and sunset 4:47 Eastern Standard Time (E.S.T.)
Beautiful Venus rises at 3:16 a.m. on the 19th, 3:27 at month’s end. The namesake of the goddess of love and beauty reaches its highest point in the sky on the 26th. Jupiter trails Venus until the 25th. Significantly, the two will be in conjunction, closest together, on the 25th and 26th, when Venus is highest, then Jupiter edges above Venus. While Venus is still bright half an hour before sunrise you might enjoy the adventure of keeping less bright Jupiter in view by gazing into the softly lit sky until the point of its light reaches your eyes, continuing until Jupiter, then Venus, fades from view. Each morning, Jupiter gains
altitude as Venus descends, little Mars close below. The three planets form a rather rare, dynamic trio, highlighting their graduated magnitudes, through the beginning of November.
In the midst of these wonderful planetary movements comes the Orionid meteor shower during the wee hours of Wednesday and Thursday, the 21st and 22nd, with a preference for the 22nd if weather predictions and your calendar favor one night only. The shower is predicted to be at peak from 1:30 – 5:40 a.m. Ten to twenty meteors per hour are usual for the Orionids. Shooting stars fly before and after that timeframe. While casually stargazing with family around midnight on the 17th, we delighted in seeing many shooting stars.
Enjoy the sky as drawn in the attached diagrams. They depict contiguous areas of sky. If you’re out to see the Orionids after 3 a.m., look east, to the left, for the planets.
The Hunter’s Moon reaches full phase at 8:05 a.m. on the 27th. Moonrise is in the east at 6:23 p.m., moonset in the west at 8:27 a.m. on the 28th.
