Astro News

Friday, October 27

Comet SWAN update: This fine binocular
comet (C/2006 M4), now in the western
evening sky, brightened unexpectedly
to magnitude 4½ around October 24th.

Saturday, October 28
By midevening bright Capella is up in
the northeast, sparkling in fine view.
Well off to its right in the east is
the little Pleiades cluster have you
greeted it yet this season? Down below
the Pleiades glares orange Aldebaran,
the eye of Taurus, the Bull.

First-quarter Moon
..
Sunday, October 29
Daylight saving time, observed in most
of North America, ends at 2:00 a.m.
Sunday morning. Clocks "fall back" one
hour. Daylight time is not used in
Hawaii, Saskatchewan, Puerto Rico,
or in most of Arizona.

Monday, October 30
This evening (for the Americas) Comet
SWAN passes close to Epsilon Herculis,
the southeast corner of the Keystone
of Hercules.

Tuesday, October 31
Maybe you recognize Cassiopeia at a glance.
But can you recognize its star cluster
NGC 7789 in binoculars, just off Cassiopeia's
western side?

Wednesday, November 1
Wait up till about 8:30 or 9 p.m., look
low in the east-southeast, and there you'll
find bright, wintry Orion rising into view.

Thursday, November 2
The bright eclipsing variable star Algol
should be in one of its periodic dimmings,
magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for
a couple hours centered on 1:29 a.m. EST
Friday morning. Algol takes several additional
hours to fade and to rebrighten.

This Week's Planet Roundup

Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are all
hidden in the glare of the Sun.

Saturn (magnitude +0.5, in Leo), rises around
1 a.m. daylight saving time, midnight standard
time, and is in fine view high in the southeast
by early dawn. Regulus, about half as bright,
sparkles 7° below Saturn after they rise.
Regulus is lower left of Saturn by dawn.

Uranus (magnitude 5.8, in Aquarius) and Neptune
(magnitude 7.9, in Capricornus) are highest in
the south in early evening. If you have at
least a 10- or 12-inch telescope.

Pluto is lost in the sunset.



--
The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond

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