Great Opportunity to watch Jupiter, Mars and Venus and even Mercury

Mercury is just one of the planets that are visible during the month of October. Jupiter started out below Venus and Mars early this month, but it’s ascending upward closer to them.

Within the next few weeks, all four morning planets will regularly change their positions in relation to one another.

“Meanwhile the giant planet Jupiter, which is rising higher in the sky, passes less than an angular diameter equal to that of the Moon from Mars on October 17”.

From October 22-29, Venus will join them, and all three planets will be appear within five degrees of each other.

I think part of the reason that not many people have seen Mercury, is because many astronomy guidebooks give the impression that it’s hard, if not impossible to see.

The planet Mercury is shown from a distance of approximately 17,000 miles, taken by NASA’s Messenger spacecraft January 14, 2008 at the spacecraft’s closest approach to planet.

After an appearance in the evening sky in September, Mercury has now returned to the morning sky and will make its brightest and easiest-to-spot pre-dawn appearance of the year.

Mercury faces the greatest range of temperatures, almost 900 degrees Fahrenheit on its day side and minus 300 F on its night side.

A fun fact about Mercury: CBS News noted that in the pre-Christian era, the planet has two names.

By October. 30, Mercury will have brightened to magnitude -1.0, surpassing the brilliance of every star in the sky with the exception of Sirius (the brightest of all stars). It was only in the fifth century BC when Pythagoras noted that Mercury and Apollo were one and the same.

On the morning of October 30. the innermost planet will appear next to the bluish colored star Spica in the constellation Virgo. The triple conjunction will reach its peak on Monday, October 26, when Venus and Jupiter come close enough to each other to look like a “double planet”. Spica, however, will be only appear about 1one-sixth as bright as Mercury, so you’ll probably need binoculars to spot it.