In this month's edition:

  • Planetary Skylights: Venus, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Mercury
  • Meteor Showers: Piscids, Giacobinids/Draconids and Orionids
  • October 2016 Sky Charts

This year’s foray over to Westerdale on Sept 2nd remarkably coincided with crystal clear skies once again, in fact we could not have wished for clearer ones.  It was obvious on arrival at the village hall car park that a sizeable gathering was present, induced out by the fine conditions (or was it society stalwart John Randles – the Godfather of Westerdale.  Whatever, we received a warm welcome as usual.  Whilst John and Mark were talking a barn owl flew out across the drop next to the site, a fine start to proceedings. [Read more about Westerdale Star Party: Friday 2nd Sept 2016]

The following evening (3rd) was scheduled to be the Hook’s house camp site star party, however conditions were decidedly incompatible to any form of event, so it was postponed for a week.  The 10th our contingency date, turned out to be far more conducive for a star party.  Skies were almost as clear as Westerdale, the big difference being the moon, a full half, so natural light pollution was more evident.  Five members had made it across, and with 5 scopes set up, there was enough instrument ‘eye candy’ to attract the campers from a pretty full campsite. [Read more about Hook’s House Events 2016]

Mark managed an unscheduled sole star party event one Friday, which turned out to be quite successful.  It has to be said though that for one reason or another, our summer star party season seems to have been a struggle... [Read more about Unscheduled September 2016 Events on West Cliff]

  • Mark's talk for the Whitby Lit & Phil on "The Autumn night sky"
  • Star Party to raise funds for the ‘Brighter Futures’ charity, helping African children get an education
  • Possibly a couple more star party events during October.
    ...

Following the toppling of the Whitby museum dictator, and the restoration of sanity (and hopefully all amenities) we shall discuss at the forthcoming October monthly meeting whether it is viable to return, but... [Read more about Paul Money Lecture Update & Night Scenes 2016]

Bear Tails and Tiaras

I always view early autumn with a certain amount of nostalgia as it was around this time I first became interested in identifying the stellar patterns visible in the night sky.  As it turns out early October is almost ideal to do so;- summer constellations remain well placed as soon as darkness falls, those associated with autumn take centre stage later in the evening and waiting in the wings is the brilliant stellar canopy of winter, a vista to savour.  Of course I knew nothing of this as a young boy, but having just acquired a pair of second hand binoculars, a couple of astronomical books, and inspired by the many wonderful tales and legends associated with the constellations, early October seemed particularly suitable... [Read more about Bear Tails and Tiaras]

The Square

Having shown how the familiar star pattern of the Plough may be used to locate other constellations in the north and west part of the sky, another highly useful arrangement of stars currently visible in the autumn sky may be utilised to pick out aspects of the South and East... [Read more about The Square]