If you happen to be outside with the holiday ghouls, please take a few minutes to look up at the gorgeous autumn sky.

Venus is still with us in the morning, rising about 90 minutes before sunrise.  If you have a treed horizon, it may not be as easy as it has been recently, but it still is a beautiful sight.  Jupiter, although it rises just after 10:30 P.M. and is now considered an evening planet, can still be enjoyed in the early morning.  Look for it still within Gemini, the Twins.  

Saturn is the planet to look for in the evening.  As it is within the dim constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer, Saturn is in our southern skies until setting at 3:30 A.M.  And, although now just out of reach of a normal telescope’s field of view, Neptune is still fairly easy to locate, as it is four degrees northeast of Saturn, still within range of your 10X50 binocular field of view.

Mercury and Mars are both very low in the southwest after sunset, and are very difficult to see.

The Moon becomes first quarter on the 29th.  The next evening, you might want to watch it occult - pass in front of - the fairly bright star Deneb Algedi in the constellation Capricornus, the Sea Goat.  It begins at 9:09 P.M., and the star “returns” less than an hour later.  On both the 1st and 2nd, the waxing gibbous Moon will be just a few degrees from Saturn.

Please remember to “fall back,” turn your clocks back one hour, for us to again conform to Eastern Standard Time Sunday morning, November 2nd.

At the moment, there are three comets in the sky, but unfortunately they all don’t show the best views.  With your binoculars, you might pick up Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon, which is moving southeastward through Serpens, into Ophiuchus.  On the 3rd, you might use the globular cluster M12 as a guide, when it will be just two degrees away, at the 5 o’clock position from it.  Comet C/2025 R2 SWAN is now near its brightest, but it may need a telescope to observe it.  It is moving eastward through the constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer, at the rate of close to three degrees eastward each day.  The Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS is too dim even for a telescope.  It is moving at a breakneck speed of over 42 miles per second, the length of our State of Rhode Island.

If you’re still watching for the star T in Corona Borealis, it is now setting before 10:00 P.M. this week.

As the weather definitely is getting cooler, we should leave the warm, summer constellations behind and start befriending the stars of autumn.  Moving to the left, or east, you should easily find the “sign” of the season, just slightly off from being a perfect square.  This is in fact the body of the beautiful winged horse, Pegasus.  He was very important in the rescue of the princess Andromeda, whom we’ll meet in the future.  If you have a good imagination, you might be able to make him out:  First of all, Pegasus was so large that unfortunately only his front was able to fit within the stars; also, you might notice he’s situated upside down; finally, remember his beautiful wings? There was no room for them, either. However, with all these in mind, looking up at the Great Square, can’t you make out an upside down only half there flying horse with no wings?  Thought you could.

Yes, it’s that time again, when skeletons and witches are on many peoples’ lawns: Hallowe’en.  But, it’s also the anniversary of the radio program that gave us commercials: The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles’s masterpiece program.  His Mercury Theatre on the Air had gotten poor ratings, and Welles realized something good had to be made to increase ratings.  As it was October 30, 1938, he decided to produce H.G. Wells’s classic.  However, as there was only one break in the action, close to the end, and the program itself was so superbly done (if you’ve never heard it, please try to find it) that it did create mass panic.  Yes, Welles was fined for this, but his Mercury Theatre was renewed, and now it seems we have more commercials than regular programming at times.

Two celestial occurrences that are always welcome are total solar eclipses and the discovery of a comet.  But, the two don’t normally happen at the same time - except in 1948.  On November 1st, a total solar eclipse was visible from the other side of the world, from the middle of Africa and south of both Australia and New Zealand.  When totality occurred, those observing the phenomenon suddenly noticed a comet that had not been seen previously.  Situated two degrees southwest of the eclipsed Sun, the comet was listed as -2 magnitude.  It was rediscovered the morning of November 4, displaying a 20 degree tail.  Because of the way in which it was observed, it was designated as Comet C/1948V1 (Eclipse Comet).

The Galileo spacecraft was intended to travel to the planet Jupiter after it was launched; however, it was also programmed to take the first closeup images of an asteroid: Gaspra.  That was set for October 29, 1991, when it would pass within 1,000 miles of the asteroid. 

When we think of dust, we normally just think of the light film we must use a cloth or feather duster to get out of the way; but interstellar dust is another matter.  Witness in 1994, when astronomers discovered a galaxy previously obscured   First detected by the radio telescope Dwingeloo 1, and named for this instrument, it was eventually observed through visual telescopes, which noted its barred spiral shape, much like our own Milky Way.  Located just 10 million light years away, or four times farther than the beautiful Andromeda Galaxy - M31 - Dwingeloo 1 is located in our northern constellation Cassiopeia. 

Enjoy your Hallowe’en, and keep looking up.