In the Sky This Month

The globular cluster M15 is high in the southern sky at nightfall. Through binoculars, it looks like a fuzzy star. It’s actually a globe-shaped family of several hundred thousand stars that may contain a black hole at its center.

The Moon will be full the next couple of nights, as it passes opposite the Sun in our sky. October’s full Moon is generally known as the Hunter’s Moon. As the full Moon after the Harvest Moon, its light helped hunters scour the barren fields for game.

The planet Uranus is putting in its best showing of the year. It lines up opposite the Sun, so it rises around sunset and is in view all night. It’s brightest for the year, too, although you still need binoculars to see it.

The Moon stands almost due east at sunset. It’s in its “waxing gibbous” phase. “Gibbous” means that sunlight illuminates more than half of the hemisphere facing Earth, while “waxing” means that a greater percentage of the surface is lit each night.

Under a dark sky, far from city lights, the eye can see thousands of stars, yet only a few are like the Sun. Two of them are in view by about 10 p.m. 51 Pegasi is in the south, well above the Moon. At the same time, Tau Ceti is low in the southeast.

The Orionid meteor shower will be at its best this weekend. The Moon makes a pest of itself, though, especially on Sunday night, when the shower should reach its peak. It leaves a little better viewing window tonight and tomorrow night, though.

The planet Mars stands to the right of the Moon at nightfall. Although it has lost a good bit of its luster since the summer, it remains one of the half-dozen brightest objects in the night sky, shining like a brilliant orange star.

Look for the planet Mars to the left of the Moon as darkness falls this evening. It looks like a bright orange star. Mars will stand even closer to the Moon as they set, after midnight.

A space rock the size of a building will buzz near Earth tomorrow, although there is no risk of it hitting us. Asteroid 2014 US7 will miss Earth by about 750,000 miles, which is three times the distance to the Moon.

Auriga, the charioteer, climbs into view in the northeast by about 9 p.m. It’s marked by yellow-orange Capella, one of the brightest stars in northern skies.