Title: Now, at the beginning I mentioned the Geminid meteor shower, which this year will be at its best late on the night of Tuesday,
Author: Kelly Beatty
Company: Sky Publishing Corporation

Sky Tour Podcast for October 2023

This month’s episode is sponsored by Celestron, manufacturer of high-quality telescopes and an industry leader in developing exciting optical products with revolutionary technologies.
*****
I’m Kelly Beatty of Sky & Telescope magazine, and tonight we’re going on a tour of the stars and planets that you’ll see overhead during October. This month we’ll celebrate two eclipses; check in with Jupiter and Saturn; track down the evening’s bright stars; and look for bits of Halley’s Comet flashing across the sky. So grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.
*****
If you’re tuning into this episode after the middle of October, then what I’m about to tell you is old news. But if you’re one of Sky Tour’s dedicated listeners, then of course it’s still early in October — and you’re in for a treat.
Now, you probably know that next April a total solar eclipse will be visible along a track that slices right through the United States, and I suspect you might already have plans for that. But another solar eclipse is happening on Saturday, October 14th, and its path also crosses the U.S. Even though the Moon is passing directly in front of the Sun, this one isn’t total. It’s called an annular, or ring eclipse — sometimes called a “ring of fire.” The Moon is farther from Earth than usual that day, so its disk is too small to completely cover the Sun. 
In order to see the complete ring, you’ll need to be located along a path that’s no more than 150 miles wide. This track that makes landfall in central Oregon, crosses Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, and then slices diagonally across southwest Texas before heading to Central and South America. But everyone in North America will see a partial solar eclipse that day, weather permitting of course. It’ll be very deep and dramatic anywhere within a few hundred miles of the track and less so farther away. Depending on your location, the entire event will last up to 3 hours with the deepest bite happening before noon in most U.S. locations.
And so where and when is the best time to look from where you are? Well, that’s more than I can explain here. Of course, Sky & Telescope is all over this. Check out the details at skyandtelescope.org. But I can tell you that it’s never safe to look at the Sun even if most of it is covered. So, make sure you do your eclipse-gawking through a safe, approved solar filter. 
By the way, eclipse day will find me in Campeche on the Yucatán Peninsula, awaiting the ring of fire with members of our Sky & Telescope tour.
*****
Because solar eclipses happen when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun, new Moon is that day. In the week beforehand, watch the predawn sky as the Moon’s appearance shrinks from last quarter, on the 6th, to a slender crescent that moves ever-closer to the Sun on each successive morning. A few days after the 14th, that crescent reappears in the evening sky, reaching first quarter on the 21st and full Moon on the 28th. 
This year’s full Hunter’s Moon will be special, because a bit of its disk slips into Earth’s umbral shadow, creating a partial lunar eclipse. This event isn’t visible from North America, but if you’re a Sky Tour listener somewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere, you’ll be able to see it that night. 
*****
I hope you’ve been enjoying a chance to see Saturn in the evening sky. In case you’ve missed seeing it, don’t worry; it’s easy to spot. Once evening twilight fades, make a generous turn to the left from where the Sun set so that you’re facing southeast. Saturn is right there, kind of by itself and roughly a third of the way from the horizon to overhead. Do you see it? The planet looks like a brighter than average star. Don’t confuse it with somewhat dimmer Fomalhaut, which really is a star, situated lower down, by about twice the width of your clenched fist at arm’s length, and closer to the horizon. 
An hour or two after sunset, you’ll see something low in the east that’s much brighter than Saturn. Can you guess what it is? No, it’s not a supernova. And it’s not Venus either, because that planet never strays this far from the Sun in the sky. (In fact, right now Venus is p[outing on a show in the eastern sky before dawn.) Have you figured it out? Yes! It’s Jupiter, a dazzling 25 times brighter than Saturn. 
Now, Jupiter doesn’t reach opposition, when it’s closest to Earth, until the first week of November. But October is close enough, and so Jupiter looks very obvious. And the Moon will pair dramatically with Jupiter twice this month, on the nights of the 1st and the 28th.
As you gaze at Jupiter, ponder this. Right now there’s a NASA spacecraft called Juno in orbit around Jupiter. It got there in 2016, for a mission that was supposed to last not quite 2 years. But here we are, 7 years later, and Juno is still alive and kicking. There’s a European spacecraft on its way to Jupiter called JUICE, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, which was launched last April and will take 8 years to reach the giant planet. And another NASA spacecraft, called the Europa Clipper, will head toward Jupiter next year.
*****
Let’s do some stargazing. To start, face west, toward the sunset point, then make a quarter turn to your right so that you’re facing north, more or less. Not far above the horizon is our old friend, the Big Dipper. Its bowl is on the right, and its handle is sticking out toward the left. Follow the arc of the handle toward the left to reach the bright star Arcturus, which these days sets only a couple of hours or less after sunset.
As the evening’s starry sky pinwheels through the changing seasons, the Big Dipper does a slow counterclockwise dance around Polaris, the North Star. And where is Polaris, you might ask?  Some people think it’s the brightest star in the sky, but that’s not the case. Still, it’s easy to spot if you know where to look. Find the two stars on the right side of the Big Dipper’s bowl. Now draw an imaginary line through them, and follow that line upward and to the right until you spot a medium-bright star pretty much all by itself. There you go! That’s Polaris.
Three fists to the right of Polaris, and a bit higher up, you’ll see a group of five stars crudely shaped like a “3”. Or maybe you’ll see them as a broad “W” tipped up on its left corner. The whole pattern is a little bigger than your clenched fist. This is the constellation Cassiopeia, who is a queen in Greek mythology. You’ll see that Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper are situated on opposite sides of the North Star. So when one is up high, the other is down low. The Dipper dominates in spring and summer, while Cassiopeia rules in fall and winter.
Down below Cassiopeia, near the northeast horizon is a very obvious star. That’s Capella, the sixth brightest star in the nighttime sky. Capella looks like a single star, but in fact it’s a quadruple system involving two pairs of suns. One pair consists of stars somewhat like our Sun, except that they’ve gotten big and fat in their old age. They orbit very tightly, circling each other in just 104 days. The other pair is quite faint. All four lie rather close by in our celestial neighborhood, only 43 light-years away. So the light you see left the Capella system in 1980.
Now swing your gaze up, way up, to overhead. You should see the three widely spaced stars of the Summer Triangle, which measures about two or three fists on a side. The corner of the triangle farthest west, nearest the direction of sunset, is marked by Vega. It’s the main star in a tidy constellation called Lyra, the Lyre or Harp. Farther east and closer to Polaris is the star Deneb. It marks the tail of a giant swan, Cygnus, apparently flying south for the winter along the Milky Way. You should be able to make out the swan’s wingtips and long neck. Or try picturing Deneb at the top of a large cross about two fists long. The triangle’s third star is Altair, the head of a celestial eagle that’s winging toward the Swan. You might know this constellation (Aquila) as ah-KWI-luh, but the correct pronunciation is actually ACK-wi-luh.
*****
Did you get a chance to see the Perseid meteor shower back in August? It put on a great show, if your sky was clear. Well, October offers another chance to see a meteor shower — though it’s not nearly as exciting. The Orionids is a long-lasting shower that culminates on the night of October 21st. We call them the Orionids because they seem to fan across the sky from a point not far from the star Betelgeuse in Orion. These meteors are created as Earth crosses the orbit of Halley’s Comet, allowing little bits of dust shed by this famous comet to slam into our atmosphere at 41 miles per second.
Now, Orion doesn’t rise over the eastern horizon until late evening, and the meteors are more plentiful as the Great Hunter climbs higher in the sky. Also, the first-quarter Moon sets before midnight, so you’ll need to stay up rather late to see these meteors at their best.
*****
At month’s end, of course, is Halloween. Go ahead and trot out the pumpkins and fuzzy spiders, then try doing what I do. When trick-or-treaters invade our neighborhood, I set up my telescope on our driveway so that all those little goblins and their parents can take a quick peek through the eyepiece. It’s always a big hit in my neighborhood, and you should try it. The Moon is a few days past full and doesn’t rise until around 8 pm. That’s probably too late for most trick-or-treaters. But you can start with Jupiter, and be sure to point out its Galilean moons, then swing over to view Saturn and its famous rings. Then look overhead and point out the Summer Triangle.
*****
That’s about it for this month. If you want more tips for viewing the night sky, check out our website, SkyandTelescope.com, which offers great star- and planet-gazing activities
If you haven’t already subscribed, you can find Sky Tour on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen. And please leave a rating or review! It will help others find the show. 
And if you want to explore the solar system and universe more deeply, please do check out the full line of binoculars and telescopes available at Celestron.com.
Sky Tour is a production of Sky & Telescope, a division of the American Astronomical Society, and is produced by me, Kelly Beatty.
Next month we’ll spend a little more time with some lesser-known constellations of the autumn sky. Until then, I wish you clear skies.