October opens with Saturn, just about a week past opposition, high up in the eastern sky after dark and visible all night.
Look for it just below the nearly full moon on Oct. 5.
The full moon is one night later.
This month the tilt of Saturn’s rings narrows so that only larger telescopes will reveal them clearly. The variation of Saturn’s and Earth’s orbital planes around the sun causes this.
Most of the time we, on Earth, are either above Saturn’s orbital plane or below it.
But now we coincide with its plane from our point of view.
Saturn’s orbital plane continues to be the guide for our finding Neptune through binoculars.
Centering the ringed planet in a binoculars field of view, Neptune may be seen at the outer edge of that field. That would be at 11 o’clock if the field of view were a clock face.
Currently Neptune is 2.7 billion miles from Earth, while Saturn is 816 million miles away.
On the night of Oct. 9-10, the moon, just three days past full, will appear to pass through the Pleiades open star cluster in the eastern sky. It will temporarily block several of the Pleiades stars, especially between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.
Jupiter comes up in the eastern night sky around 12:30 a.m. local time on Oct. 1, but will be well up in the east before midnight by Oct. 31.
Jupiter appears below and left of Gemini’s two brightest stars, Castor and Pollux.
The waning crescent moon will be above Jupiter in the early morning hours of Oct. 13 before dawn.
Jupiter always pleases sky-watchers with telescopes because of its colorful cloud bands.
Watching Jupiter with patience over several minutes through the eyepiece will reveal other swirling details in its active atmosphere.
Brilliant Venus continues to shine in the eastern sky before dawn, but its altitude is shrinking as its orbit is bringing it around between us and the sun. Next month it will be lost in the glare of the sun for a while.
Note the crescent moon near Venus on Oct. 19 and near Spica, brightest star in Virgo, on Oct. 31.