Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday October 12th through Sunday October 18th.
The new moon for the month of October is on Friday so we’ll start the week with a waning crescent moon in the pre-dawn skies and have a waxing crescent moon in our early evening skies this weekend.
Mercury is moving back towards the Sun and its next conjunction and is setting at 7:40 p.m. at midweek, about 40 minutes after the Sun.
Jupiter and Saturn are now a little further to the west as the sky darkens after sunset but are still visible for several hours. Jupiter is setting at 12:25 a.m. and Saturn follows at 12:55 a.m.
Mars is at opposition on Tuesday the 13th and will rise at sunset and set at sunrise and therefore is visible all night. Mars is shining brightly at magnitude -2.6 making it a little brighter than Jupiter.
Venus is up in the morning skies and is rising about 3 hours before the Sun. Look for a thin waning crescent moon near Venus on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
In space anniversaries this week, Friday October 16 marks 45 years since the launch of GOES-1 weather satellite, the first of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program which continues to this day. GOES-1 was decommissioned 10 years later after it was replaced by newer satellites. 18 GOES missions have been launched and 4 are currently in operation. You can view near real-time images from the satellites on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration website at goes.noaa.gov.
All public viewing events on UT campus telescopes are on hold for the remainder of 2020. We will update the website outreach.as.utexas.edu with a new schedule when we are able to resume viewing.
While you’re waiting for in-person telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on Twitter, Facebook and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
