What’s In October’s Skies

By Matt Woods

Planets:

Mercury can be found throughout October extremely low in the East, just before sunrise. It can be found in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin), and on the 9th of August, it’ll reach its greatest elongation in the West and starts its journey back towards the Sun’s glare. This journey will end halfway through the month as it enters that glare. Mars can be found in the constellation Taurus (The Bull) between the bull’s two horns in the middle of the night.

Jupiter and Saturn dominate the night sky this month. Jupiter can be found throughout the night in between the constellations of Cetus (The Sea Monster) and Pisces (The Fish). Saturn can be found in the evening sky in the constellation of Capricornus (The Sea-Goat), and it’s setting in the early morning. Uranus is rising in the early morning in between the constellations of Aries (The Ram) and Taurus. Neptune is near Jupiter again in October. It can be located, in between the constellations of Pisces, Cetus, and Aquarius (The Water Bearer).

Mercury’s greatest elongation in the West on the morning of 09/10/2022. Image Credit: Stellarium Mars, and Uranus on the 15/10/22 at 03:00 am. Image Credit: Stellarium

Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune on the 15/10/22 at 08:00 pm. Image Credit: Stellarium

The Southern Taurid Meteor Shower:

The Southern Taurid meteor shower will be active from the 10th of September to the 20th of November, and the peak is expected to be on the night of the 10th/11th of October. It’s best to go out around 01:00 am (AWST) as the radiant point of the Southern Taurids will be at its highest point in the North. In 2022, the Southern Taurids are expected to produce around 3 meteors per hour as the Moon will be one day past the Full Moon so there’ll be a lot of light pollution from it.

The source of the Southern Taurids is Comet 2P/ Encke which is a periodic comet that completes an orbit of the Sun once every 3.3 years. Like Halley’s Comet, it is unusual in its being named after the calculator of its orbit rather than its discoverer. Encke was first recorded by Pierre Méchain on the 17th of January 1786, but it was not recognized as a periodic comet until 1819 when Johann Franz Encke computed its orbit.

The Southern Taurid Meteor Shower on the 11/10/22 at 00:00 am. Image Credit: Stellarium

The Southern Taurid Meteor Shower. Image Credit & Copyright: Getty Comet 2P/Encke. Image Credit & Copyright: D. Peach

The Orionids Meteor Shower:

The Orionids meteor shower has been observed for at least 200 years now, and they’re caused by The Earth flying through the debris left over from Comet Halley’s tail. They’ll appear to be coming from the Orion constellation which is where the meteor shower gets its name from.

The debris field started hitting the Earth around the 2nd of October and it’ll finish up towards the 7th of November. The meteor shower will peak on the night of the 21st/22nd of October, and you The Orionids on the 22/10/22 at 02:00 am. should expect to see up to 10 meteors per hour in Image Credit: Stellarium dark skies this year as the Moon is near the New Moon phase and it won’t affect how many we’ll see. The best time to view the Orionids is around 02:00 am (AWST).

A composite of the Orionids meteor shower. Image Credit & Copyright: Slooh Observatory Comet Halley. Image Credit & Copyright: NASA

Partial Solar Eclipse:

On Tuesday the 25th of October, the Moon will pass between the Earth and Sun and will cause a Partial Solar Eclipse for most of Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and western parts of Asia. This Partial Solar Eclipse, the last solar eclipse of 2022, will start at 04:58 pm (AWST) and ends at 09:02 pm (AWST). The eclipse reaches its maximum eclipse at 07:00 pm (AWST).

Partial solar eclipses happen when the Moon comes between the Sun and Earth, but the Moon only partially covers the Sun’s disk.

Our friends at TimeandDate.com will be live streaming the eclipse so we won’t miss out. To watch the live stream, you can click here.

The Partial Solar Eclipse on the 21st August of 2017. Image Credit: Bill Ingalls

October’s Partial Solar Eclipse viewing map. Image Credit & Copyright: timeanddate.com Types of Solar Eclipses. Image Credit & Copyright: TimeandDate.com

The Great Sagittarius Cluster:

Messier 22 (M22 & NGC 6656) is a globular cluster located near the Milky Way bulge, and it’s 10,600 light-years away from Earth. The tightly packed group of stars lies in the constellation Sagittarius (The Archer) and it’s one of the brightest globular clusters in the sky. It’s one of the first globular clusters to be studied, and it’s also one of the nearest globular clusters to our Solar System, with only Messier 4 being closer.

The Cluster is 100 light-years across, with 83,000 stars associated with the cluster being around 12 billion years old. Messier 22 is easy to find. Visible to the naked eye in good conditions, the cluster lies only 2.5 degrees to the northeast of the star Kaus Borealis, the star that marks the top of the Teapot in Sagittarius. In binoculars, M22 appears as a faint patch of light. Small telescopes will resolve the brightest stars and larger instruments will reveal stars across the cluster.

M22 is receding from us at 149 km/s and two black holes were discovered and confirmed by the Chandra X-ray telescope in 2012. Their discovery suggests that there may be between 5 and 100 black holes within the cluster and that multiple black holes may exist in other clusters as well. The presence of black holes and their interaction with the stars of the cluster could explain the cluster’s unusually large central region. Messier 22 is also one of only four globular clusters that contain a planetary nebula. The only other globular listed in Messier’s catalogue known to have a planetary nebula is Messier 15, located in the constellation Pegasus.

The Great Sagittarius Cluster on the 15/10/22 at 09:00 pm. Image Credit: Stellarium

Image Credit & Copyright: Wikipedia Commons/Hewholooks