October 2009
October 9th - sepcial happening at the Kangaroo Valley Showgrounds - click here for more info.
October's night sky displays Jupiter in all his glory. The king of the planets is at the zenith and perfectly placed for viewing in the clear atmosphere overhead. Even with the Moon in the sky a small telescope will reveal bands of cloud across the face of the planet. These bands will reveal more detail in larger scopes as magnification can be ramped up.
Remember that increased magnification in a small telescope does not always improve the view as the turbulence in the sky and the "wobbling" of the mounting is accentuated. I commonly use magnifications around 70x to 150x for this reason. In 35 years of astronomical viewing I have never had any success with magnifications over 250x and little telescopes that advertise like this are traps for beginners. You can work out the "power" of your eyepiece by dividing the focal length of the telescope, say 700mm, by the little number (focal length) of the eyepiece. So your 700mm scope with a 20mm eyepiece gives 35x magnification.
The cloud bands of Jupiter also give a clue to the moons as they orbit in the same plane. Little points of light that are well above or below this plane will usually be stars. Jupiter's moons are forever trailing across the disc of the planet or disappearing behind and in fact in October there are only three nights when there will be no event. On our viewing night of the 9th October there will be three between 730 and 1030PM!! 
Saturn is still behind the Sun, while Venus, Mars and Mercury are all objects for the early risers. The Winter Milky Way has started to wheel toward the western horizon and the delights of the Southern 
Cross (Crux) and Centaurus are prominent in the south. October heralds the start of Meteor season with the Orionid, Taurid and Epsilon Geminid showers active from the beginning of the month. The name of the shower comes from the apparent radiant point in the sky the meteors appear to come from. Remember that meteors are one of the most exciting "naked eye" astronomy activities. Below is a page from my observing log for the Leonids of 2006. Clear Skies!
