Astrology

Saturn blazes at its brightest for the year while the Orionid meteors begin their run

Saturn reached opposition on October 4, the point where Earth passes directly between the sun and the ringed planet, placing it opposite the sun in the sky and keeping it visible all night, EarthSky reports. The planet is shining at magnitude 0.3, brighter than usual, and will stay easy to find with the unaided eye through mid-October, according to EarthSky.

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Saturn's rings and the Orionids line up#

Space.com reports that Saturn will be visible in the southern sky throughout much of the night near the Great Square of Pegasus, its rings tilted about 7 degrees from edgewise, and that on October 23 it will shine as a steady yellow-white point positioned well below and to the left of the waxing gibbous moon.

EarthSky adds that Saturn's rings, tilted -7.5 degrees south as seen from Earth in October, are opening back up after the 2025 ring-plane crossing that happens roughly every 13 to 15 years, when the thin rings briefly vanish from small telescopes.

The Orionid meteor shower, made of debris shed by Halley's Comet, runs from October 2 through November 7 and peaks on October 21, with meteors appearing to radiate from the constellation Orion but visible across the whole sky, The Independent reports.

A waxing gibbous moon on the October 21 peak will make fainter meteors harder to see, The Independent and Yahoo News Canada both report, while the Farmers' Almanac puts the moon at roughly 80% lit on the peak mornings and recommends watching after moonset, around 3 a.m. until dawn, for rates of 15 to 25 meteors an hour under dark skies.

A second shower and a lunar occultation of Jupiter#

The Draconid meteor shower, caused by debris from Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, peaks October 8-9 and radiates from the constellation Draco in the northern sky, producing only 1-2 meteors per hour outside its peak night, according to The Weather Network.

EarthSky notes the Draconids are unusual because their radiant point stands highest at nightfall, so more meteors tend to appear in the evening than after midnight, and that the shower has occasionally erupted into hundreds of meteors an hour, though a repeat this year is considered unlikely.

On the morning of October 6, Jupiter will be hidden behind a waning crescent moon showing only 20% illumination, an event astronomers call an occultation, visible in complete darkness across the eastern and central United States and adjacent southern Canada, Space.com reports.

October's hunter's moon closes out the sky show#

October's full moon, which several Native American cultures call by names including the hunter's moon and the dying grass moon, arrives October 25 at 5:25 p.m., following a new moon on October 10 that offers good viewing conditions, according to Yahoo Tech, which also reports that Saturn will remain visible all night after its October 4 opposition.

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