Fly Fishing

The path of comet Hartley.

A brief look this week because there’s not a great deal going on, I mentioned Hartley last week, I looked for it but the moon was too bright, not this week though. Periodic Comet Hartley 2 is a dim 7th magnitude, visible in binoculars in a dark sky. It's excellently placed very high these moonless evenings, passing just south of Cassiopeia. But it's large and diffuse, so you'll need an unpolluted dark sky. Which we have in abundance, the moon is new on Thursday so this is the best week for a look, Cassiopeia is the wonky W high in the north eastern sky before midnight, there’s a guide on the blog.

Mercury (magnitude –1.2) drops back down into the sunrise this week. So its gone for a while but it will soon be back in the evening sunset.

Venus, though very bright at magnitude –4.7, is disappearing very low in the southwest during bright evening twilight. It sets well before dark. And if you’re on St Mary’s you have to go up the garrison to see it. It’s a very pronounced crescent at the moment.

Mars, vastly dimmer at magnitude +1.5, is 7° above or upper right of Venus in bright twilight. That's about one field-of-view width in typical binoculars. You'll need them. Good luck.

Jupiter is loitering at the Pisces-Aquarius border and is two weeks past opposition now. As twilight fades, Jupiter becomes very obvious low in the east-southeast. It shines high in the southeast by mid-evening, by far the brightest star like point in the sky. It's highest in the south around midnight. And well worth a look in binoculars where it will show as a clear disc with the 4 largest moons clearly visible.

And that was your night sky for the week ending on the 200^th anniversary of the first Oktoberfest: When the Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to join the celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.