Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 46

OBSERVING

Sun, Moon & Planets

A Climax of Conjunctions
Three bright planets converge in grand groupings at dawn.
Can we possibly top the spectacular
planetary pairings earlier in this "Year of
the Conjunctions"? October may feature
2015's most complexly beautiful planetary
arrangements of all - though we must
get up before sunrise to see them.
At dusk this month, the only bright
planet visible is Saturn, shining low in
the southwest. But before and during
dawn, three planets - Venus, Jupiter,
and Mars - converge after the last and
brightest of them, Venus, passes Regulus. Mars brushes less than a half degree
from Jupiter. Then, for the ﬁnal event
in an epic series of close conjunctions,
Venus comes to within one degree of
Jupiter. That's also when Venus, Jupiter,
and Mars contract into what will be arguably the ﬁnest tight trio of bright planets
we'll see for many years. And well below

these three planets, after the ﬁrst week of
October, we get a good view of a fourth -
Mercury.

DUSK
Saturn appears above the southwestern
horizon about 45 minutes after sunset
in October, but little more than 10° high
as seen from around latitude 40° north.
That's not high enough to allow a sharp
image of the planet's globe and rings in
a telescope, but binoculars will provide
a good view of Beta (β) Scorpii as Saturn
tracks north of it this month, passing
only 2/3° from the double star between
October 23rd and 27th. The ringed planet
starts the month setting 2½ hours after
the Sun in eastern Libra, but ends it setting less than 1½ hours after the Sun in
western Scorpius.

Dawn, Oct 8 -10

Dawn, Oct 3

1 hour before sunrise

1 hour before sunrise

NIGHT
Pluto is best seen right after full darkness falls. Use the ﬁnder chart at skypub.
com/pluto2015 to locate the 14th-magnitude world as it approaches Xi2 (ξ2)
Sagittarii.
Neptune, fading a trace to magnitude
+7.9 in Aquarius, is highest in the south
in the middle of the evening. Uranus,
peaking at magnitude +5.7 in Pisces,
reaches opposition on the night of October 11-12 so is highest in the middle of
the night all month. The apparent diameter of Uranus is now 3.7″, Neptune's only
2.3″. Finder charts for both are at skypub.
com/urnep.

DAWN
Venus, Regulus, Mars, and Jupiter - in
that order from top to bottom - start

Dawn, Oct 11

30 minutes before sunrise

Regulus

LEO

Venus

Moon
Oct 8

LEO
Regulus

γ

Mars

Venus

Venus

Jupiter

Regulus
Moon
Oct 9

Mars
Mars

Denebola

Jupiter

10°

Jupiter
Moon
Oct 10

Denebola

Mercury
Denebola
Moon
Mercury

Looking East

46

October 2015 sky & telescope

Looking East

Looking East

Sky and Telescope - October 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - October 2015

Contents
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 1
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 3
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - A
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - B
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 4
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 5
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 6
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 7
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 8
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 9
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 10
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 11
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Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 45
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 46
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - 47
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Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - Cover3
Sky and Telescope - October 2015 - Cover4
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