For October, the Moon will be full on October 7th, so the first week will find the Moon waxing and getting brighter and setting later each evening. In native American tradition, this is the "Harvest Moon," full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox on September 22nd. For several evenings, the almost full moon will be rising just a few minutes later each evening, a great aid to farmers getting their corn in the crib.

This full moon also corresponds with perigee, when the moon is closest to us and largest, so look at the rising full moon; indeed, it is bigger than normal!

If you can't see the Galaxy well in the first week, look instead to the west for Jupiter, the brightest object in the SW. Even small scopes will show the four planet-sized moons (all bigger than Pluto) that orbit its equator, but as the giant planet gets lower each evening, it will be hard to see the disk detail as the atmosphere is turbulent lower near the horizon.

By month's end, the waxing crescent moon pass just below Jupiter and Mercury on Tuesday, October 24. Mercury in fact can be seen to play tag with larger and brighter but much slower moving Jupiter all month. It passes four degrees south and below Jupiter on October 17, then turns back toward the Sun and passes Jupiter again on October 24, to rush between us and the Sun for a transit on November 8th; more about that rare sight next month.

By October 10th, the Moon is waning and rising later each evening, giving several hours of darkness for twilight observers of the Galaxy.

While the naked eye, dark adapted by several minutes away from any bright lights, is a wonderful instrument to stare up at the Galaxy arching overhead, binocs are better for spotting specific deep sky objects all along the plane of the Galaxy. For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, about October 1st visit the www.skymaps.com website and download the map for October; it will have a more extensive calendar, and list of best objects for the naked eyes, binocs, and scopes on the back of the map.

Especially nice for deep sky watchers are the two fine clusters, M-6 and M-7, in the tail of Scorpius in the SW; above them is Sagittarius, like a great teapot in the current southern sky. Look at where the cloud of steam comes out; this is M-8, the Lagoon Nebula, a fine stellar nursery visible with the naked eye, nice in binocs, and fine in low power telescopes.

Higher up the spiral arm of the Galaxy we are moving through, look for Cygnus the Swan overhead. You will notice a dark rift of dust cutting the spiral arm down the middle. We, the solar system, are heading into that rift at 250 km/sec as we orbit the Galaxy's core in Sagittarius.

Fall reveals new constellations rising in the east now, including the Great Square of Pegasus. From the NE corner star of the square, find the three stars in a row for Andromeda, and from its middle star, go to the upper left toward the top star of the "W" shape of bright Cassiopeia, rising in the east to replace the Big Dipper, now setting in the NW. The faint oval blur you see is M-31, the Andromeda Galaxy, visible with the naked eyes and at 2.5 million ly. distance, the farthest you can see with eyes only. Large amateur scopes reveal two companion galaxies, M-32 and M-110, and dust lanes in this nearby spiral very similar to the dust you saw overhead in Cygnus in our home galaxy.

Our local astronomy club, the Escambia Amateur Astronomers' Association, has just been named the Runner Up in the National "out-of-this world" astronomy club competition sponsored by Astronomy Magazine. We will host several local stargazes to take advantage of these clear, cool evenings in the next few weeks, and of course a Mercury Transit viewing at PJC for November 8.

For more i n f o r m a t i o n , including a free packet with m a n y n i c e handouts donated by Astronomy magazine, call the PJC sponsor, Dr. Wayne Wooten, at (850) 484-1152, or e-mail him at wwooten@pjc.edu; the club's website is at www.eaaa.net .

Keep looking up!

E d i t o r s Note:

Dr. Wayne Wooten and EAAA President Ed Magowan at the club stargaze for the perseid meteor shower on August 11 near Portofino. They used Ed's 9" telescope and PJC's new StellaCam II video camera, and photographed the LCD display with a typical digital camera most readers already own!