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New Moon:
Oct
3
Full Moon:
Oct
17
Club Indoor Meeting: Oct
6 (Thursday)
Club Stargaze: Oct
7 (Friday) and Oct 28 (Friday)
MARS!!!! MARS!!!! MARS!!!!!
It's apparent size will increase during the summer and fall, reaching 20.2
arc seconds in late October. At this time Mars will be the closest it will be
for the next 13 years. It will be much higher in the sky than it was during it's
2003 approach, so will appear smaller but sharper in telescopes.
("Looking
is not observing. So many look but few observe."
This
quote of
Richard Baum applies more to planets than to any other astonomical
object. It take time and patience to see much detail on planets!)
DEEP SKY OBJECTS (DSO's) (Not
the biggest or best, but interesting):
RING NEBULA (M57)
DUMBBELL NEBULA (M27)
VEIL NEBULA (NGC6960-6992)
ALBERIO (Double Star)
(These 4 objects above are in west at nightfall,
so catch them early in night before they get low in western sky.)
ANDROMEDA
GALAXY (M31)
PINWHEEL GALAXY (M33)
DOUBLE CLUSTER (NGC869-884)
HIGHLIGHTS:
Oct
4: First day of Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting) begins at sunset
on Oct 3. Per Guy Ottwell, the Muslim calendar is the only purely lunar calendar
in wide use. (The date of the first day of the New Year depends on sighting the
new moon at sunset the previous day.)
Oct
4: Rosh Hashanah, first day of Jewish year 5766, it begins at sunset on
Oct 3. Per Ottwell (again), before the 10th century "each month began with
the first sighting of the young moon; people who claimed to have seen it were
interrogated by the preists." Now-a-days, the beginning of the month is calculated.
Oct 17: This
full moon, the first after the Harvest Moon, is called the Hunter's
Moon.
Oct 30: Set clocks back 1 hour at 3:00am.
Oct
31: Hallowe'en, one of the 4 "cross quarter" days in the standard
calendar.
The Draconid meteor shower peaks on October
8th. A waxing crescent moon will not be much of a problem.
The Epsilon Geminid
meteor shower peaks October 18th. A minor shower and the full moon will wash
it out.
The Orionid meteor shower peaks on October 21st. These meteors
are notoriously fast (66km/sec), sometimes bright, and often leave a trail. The
radiant in Orion's club rises about 9:30pm but, unfortunately, a 78% illuminated
waxing gibbous moon will ruin the shower this year.
TERMS
AFOV=apparent field of view / dec=declination
/ EP=eye piece / FOV=field of view / ISS=International Space Station / HST=Hubble
Space Telescope / ly=light year / mag=magnitude / ra=right ascension /
culminates=transits the meridian=when an object as at its highest point in the
sky / transit=passing in front of another object / ZHR=zenithal hourly rate (basically,
the most meteors 1 person could see in 1 hour under ideal conditions)
CLUB STARGAZE
You can check the AstroAsheville
Yahoo group [or call Tim @ 251-0040 or John @ 251-1933 (before 5:00) or 667-9268
(after 5:00)] for a go/no-go decision and to verify location.
CLUB MEETING
Indoor club meetings are usually the first Thursday of every
month, at 6 p.m. in the Sims
Group offices (230 Short Coxe Ave., Asheville, NC.)
Happy Starwatching! Dress Warm! Blue Ridge Parkway Information
Line is 828-298-0398
.............................................................................................................................................................................
(Much of the above info is derived from Sky & Telescope magazine, Ottewell's
Astronomical Calendar, The Night Sky Observer's Guide, Burnam's Celestial Handbook,
Megastar 5.0, Planets202, Cartes du Ciel, the ol' Miller Planesphere, and a little
(very little) common sense.)