Monday, October 26, 2020
Thursday October 29 to Thursday November 5
The Full Moon is Sunday November 1 (Saturday October 31 in WA), this is an apogee (mini) Moon and a Blue Moon in WA .
The
insets show the telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn at the same
magnification at this time.
Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset), click to embiggen.
Three bright planets are visible stretching west to east. Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. The Moon leaves the lineup later this week.
Similar views will be seen
elsewhere at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset). click to embiggen.
Evening sky at 21:15 ACDST on Thursday, October 29 facing east as seen from Adelaide. Mars is above
the north-eastern horizon just below the Moon. Mars is past opposition, but is still excellent. more details here. The variable start Mira is still visible to the unaided eye but may b difficult to see with the waxing moonlight.
The inset is the telescopic view of Venus at this time.
The is a apogee full Moon, that is a full Moon that occurs when furthest from the Earth. A "mini Moon if you will.
This is in contrast to the Perigee "super" Full Moon April 08. If you have a good memory you will see that this full Moon is smaller than the April one (although not by much to the unaided eye, but it will be clear in binoculars and telescopes).
Apogee actually occurs at 5:17 ACDST on the 31st. For WA, where Full Moon occurs on the 31st at 23:00 AWST their "mini Moon" occurs at the same time as the blue moon (the second full Moon in a month). Every one else has to wait until the end of November for their blue Moon.
Mercury is lost in the twilight..
Venus is still readily visible low above the horizon in the morning.
Mars is visible in the morning sky to the north-west, It is now readily visible in the evening sky. Mars is close to the variable star Mira, which is still reasonably bright. Mars was at opposition, when it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on October the 14th, but is still worthwhile observing. Observing details and more at the Mars Opposition site.
Jupiter can be readily seen in the early evening sky. Jupiter and Saturn start around a hand-span apart at the beginning of the week but slowly draw closer. The pair are prominent in the evening skies along with Mars. Jupiter is setting around 1:30 am local time.
Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to the current time.
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/
Labels: weekly sky
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