Saturday: Jupiter is less than a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length below the Moon at 9:00 p.m. At this same time, Saturn is three fists above due south.
Sunday: Venus is three fists above the east-southeast horizon at 6:45 a.m.
Monday: According to the “One world, group hug, love everyone” philosophy, political borders are human-made and can’t be seen from space so why can’t we all just get along. According to real world pragmatic discoveries, some human-made political borders CAN be seen from space. Since 2003, India has illuminated its border with Pakistan to prevent illegal crossings. In 2011, astronaut Ron Garan took a picture of that border from the International Space Station. For more information, including the photo, go to http://goo.gl/mY8xG.
Tuesday: Today is Halloween. If you need costume ideas, look low in the sky at 7:00 p.m.. Arcturus is one fist above the western horizon. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arcturus is home to giant ships called Arcturan Megafreighters and oversized megafauna like the Arcturan Megaleech and Arcturan Megacamel. Capella is one fist above the northeastern horizon. In the second season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series called Friday’s Child, the Enterprise goes to Capella IV to negotiate a mining contract for an important mineral. While there, they get tangled up with warring factions and a Klingon. These two stars might help you win the costume contest if you go dressed as Captain Kirk, a Klingon, or an Arcturan Megaleech. For more about stars featured in popular fiction, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars_and_planetary_systems_in_fiction.
Wednesday: Happy Celtic New Year! Many historians think that November 1, known for the festival of Samhain, was the ancient Celtic New Year’s Day. Samhain, Old Irish for “summer’s end”, was a harvest festival that may have contributed to some of the customs of our current “holiday” of Halloween.
Thursday: Jupiter is in opposition tonight. That doesn’t mean Jupiter disagrees with everything. Opposition means that Jupiter is on the opposite side of the Earth as the Sun. When an object is in opposition, it is at its highest point in the sky during the darkest time of the day. Thus, opposition is typically the best time to observe a planet. Jupiter is five and a half fists above due south at 1:00 a.m., midnight non-daylight savings time. If you don’t want to stay up so late, you can see it two fists above the eastern horizon at 8:00 p.m.
Friday: Did you know that moons and dwarf planets can share similar features? The five largest moons of Uranus have the same heat signatures as the largest dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris. That means they are relatively dense and don’t immediately radiate away all of their daytime-absorbed heat at night. Read more about Uranian moons at https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/uranian-moons-are-like-dwarf-planets/. Uranus can easily be seen with typical binoculars. It is about one fist to the lower left of Jupiter, midway between the open star cluster called the Pleiades and Jupiter. In your binoculars, you’ll see it right below a “dome” of four stars of similar brightness. If you are not sure which object is Uranus, observe it for a few nights. It will have moved over the course of a few nights.
The positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.
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