For guidance on reading the tables for beginners – please go here
There is a potential opportunity to see a comet this month. Based on the data from mid-2023, Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS may be visible after it passes between Earth and the Sun (September 24) as it gets closer to the Earth after about October 10. Although still about 60-million km from Earth, the hot sunlight may cause the comet to brighten enough to see it with our unaided eyes above the western horizon. Comets are notoriously fickled, so it may “flame” or fizzle”.
Regardless, the best time to look will be in the evening after the first week of October. Near the end of twilight, it will be roughly 20 degrees up and to the right of Venus (very low in the southwest). After that it will move very slowly (day-by-day) to the east – appearing higher in our sky but fainter. The light of the brightening first quarter Moon will make it progressively harder to see as time goes by.
NOTABLE EVENTS
Oct 2 Annular solar eclipse111:42, New Moon 14:49
Oct 10 First Quarter Moon 14:55, Deneb on meridian at 20:09
Oct 16 Deneb at zenith at 8:01pm for latitude 45 deg observers.
Oct 17 Full Moon 07:26
Oct 23 Venus at maximum morning Elongation
Oct 24 Last Quarter Moon 04:03, Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Passes between the Earth and Sun
Oct 30 Sun enters Libra
SOLAR ECLIPSE
Wed, Oct 2, 2024, 11:42 a.m. Eastern Time
ECLIPSE TYPE annular solar eclipse will occur at the Moon’s descending node of orbit
GREATEST ECLIPSE CENTRAL DURATION 7 min 25 sec
FRACTION OF SUN’S DIAMETER OBSCURED BY THE MOON 0.933
LOCATIONS OF GREATEST SOLAR OBSCURATION Southeast Pacific, far southern South America
An Eclipse Never Comes Alone, usually 2, sometimes 3!
A solar eclipse usually comes around 2 weeks before or after a lunar eclipse
Oct 2nd is the 2nd eclipse this season.
1st was September 18, 2024 — Partial Lunar Eclipse
3rd was so close but on… October 17, 2024 — Almost Lunar Eclipse, The Earth’s Shadow Just Misses the Moon -timeanddate.com calculations show that the Sun, Earth, and Moon will be very closely aligned on this day, but there will be no lunar eclipse. There are several different ways to calculate eclipses, so some sources are listing this event as a penumbral lunar eclipse. In any case, viewers on Earth will not be able to see the Earth’s shadow on the Moon.
MONTHLY TABLE
Dates for the Phases of the Moon
Entries are in Eastern Time and only require time zone correction. Do not use the correction from the “Ottawa-Time” table. Saskatchewan and parts of BC and Ontario do not use daylight savings. In these regions, subtract 1-hour from these times from March 10 to November 3.
Planetary Configurations
When at Opposition, planets will appear on the opposite side of the sky from the Sun – very roughly on the meridian at midnight. Conjunctions are when the planet has the same “longitude” as the Sun. A Superior Conjunction is when the planet is on the other side of the Sun, and an Inferior Conjunction is when it is between the Earth and the Sun. Only Mercury and Venus can be at Inferior Conjunction. Maximum elongation is when Mercury and Venus appear farthest from the Sun in our sky. This occurs either in our morning eastern sky (mor.) or our western evening sky (eve.). Do not apply the Ottawa-correction times to the times in this table.
Prominent Constellations by Seasons
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One of Canada’s foremost writers and educators on astronomical topics, the Almanac has benefited from Robert’s expertise since its inception. Robert is passionate about reducing light pollution and promoting science literacy. He has been an astronomy instructor for our astronauts and he ensures that our section on sunrise and sunset, stargazing, and celestial events is so detailed and extensive it is almost like its own almanac.
