Oct. 26 Lunar Eclipse
The Moon will pass through Earth’s shadow tomorrow night,
creating a total lunar eclipse. The shadow will completely engulf
the Moon at 7:23pm PDT, and the Moon will remain immersed in the
shadow for more than an hour.
Oct. 26 Lunar Eclipse
The Moon will pass through Earth’s shadow tomorrow night, creating a total lunar eclipse. The shadow will completely engulf the Moon at 7:23pm PDT, and the Moon will remain immersed in the shadow for more than an hour.
Oct. 27 More Lunar Eclipse
The Moon passes through Earth’s shadow tonight, creating a total lunar eclipse. The eclipse gets under way at 6:14pm PDT, when the shadow first touches the lunar disk. The shadow will engulf the Moon by 7:23pm. The Moon will look dark red or gray.
Oct. 28 Moon Illusion
The Moon is just past full, but it still looks round and bright, and is visible almost all night. The full Moon looks unusually large just after it rises. This effect is called the Moon illusion.
It is not a physical effect, it’s simply an optical illusion.
Oct. 29 Venus and Jupiter
About an hour before sunrise, look in the east for the planet Venus, the dazzling “morning star.” It outshines everything else in the night sky except the Moon.
A little to the lower left of Venus is the planet Jupiter, the next-brightest object in the night sky.
Oct. 30 Cassiopeia Climbs
Look high in the north and east during autumn evenings for a flattened letter “W” floating through the Milky Way. The W consists of the brightest stars in the constellation Cassiopeia.
Oct. 31 Halloween
The gibbous Moon soars high overhead tonight, making a perfect nightlight for Halloween.
Halloween is a cross-quarter day – a day that falls halfway between an equinox and a solstice.
In many cultures, these days represented the starts of the seasons. Halloween would have been the first day of winter, for example.
By The University of Texas McDonald Observatory
