Mon Oct 19, 2026 OLBERS AND HIS PARADOX
Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, who discovered the asteroids Pallas and Vesta a couple of hundred years ago, was born on October 11, 1758. He is best known for what’s called, Olber’s Paradox. Olbers asked a simple question: "why is the sky dark at night?" Now that seems a bit silly - after all, the sky is dark at night because the earth rotates into its own shadow, what we call night. ”I know that,” he said. But if the universe is infinite in size, then that means there's an infinite number of stars out there. So no matter where you look, you'll eventually find a star - the sky should be ablaze with light! But it's not. This suggests that the Universe is perhaps not infinite, and that there was a definitive point in time in which everything began, and also that our Universe is expanding!
Tue Oct 20, 2026 ORIONID METEOR SHOWER
There’s a meteor shower going on right now. The Orionid meteors seem to come out of the constellation Orion, which is why they’re called the Orionids. The dust and debris that cause this shower have a distinguished pedigree – they’re from the tail of Halley’s Comet. Most meteor showers are best after midnight, and this one is no exception, especially as the light from the waxing gibbous moon will spoil the view during the evening hours. Protect yourself against mosquitoes, dress warmly, take along a lounge chair for comfort, and get away from any bright lights that might keep you from seeing a clear, dark sky. Face toward the east and watch for these shooting stars – perhaps a dozen visible each hour. Best viewing should be from late evening until dawn for the next couple of nights. Binoculars and telescopes are not needed, just use your eyes!
Wed Oct 21, 2026 BEN FRANKLIN’S HURRICANE
Hurricane season here in Florida begins on June 1st and ends on November 30th. Except for a bit of strong wind and quite a lot of rain this past couple of months, hurricanes have been missing our east coast so far. One of the first scientists to study hurricanes was Ben Franklin, over 200 years ago. On October 21st, 1743 in the city of Philadelphia, Franklin was hoping to observe a lunar eclipse, but he couldn’t because a big storm came in from the northeast. Now Franklin’s brother up in Boston to the northeast later told him that he was able to see the eclipse and that the storm hit them much later.The storm hit Philadelphia first? Franklin gathered a lot of weather reports and found that the storm had moved up the Atlantic seaboard, moving counter to the local surface winds. And so he discovered the cyclonic nature of a hurricane.
Thu Oct 22, 2026 FARTHEST NAKED-EYE OBJECT
What’s the farthest thing you can see without a telescope? Off in the northeastern sky this evening, you can find the answer to this question, but only if the skies are very clear, and very dark, and you know just where to look. It’s a small, very dim smudge of light that lies in the direction of the constellation Andromeda. But this little cloud is neither little, nor does it have any physical connection with the stars of Andromeda, which are merely trillions of miles away. It’s another galaxy, comprising hundreds of billions of stars – bigger than our own Milky Way – and it’s about 2 and a half million light years away. So if you ever catch a glimpse of this far-flung object, which we call the Andromeda galaxy, you’ll be looking at something that is 15 million trillion miles away – and that’s how far out your eye can see.
Fri Oct 23, 2026 THE EYE OF SAURON
Today’s Skywatch was written by planetarium assistant Vela De la Mare. Underneath the blanket of night there appears to be a watchful eye observing us from afar. Hovering close to the horizon and following the moon across the sky is the bright star Fomalhaut. The name literally means Mouth of the Fish, given its position in the small constellation Piscis Austrinus. But false color imaging reveals that this star appears much more like an eye than a mouth. It is surrounded by a graveyard of icy comets, as well as a Saturn-sized world, which NASA has dubbed the “zombie planet.” Its existence was confirmed with a perfectly timed photo of the entire system. The planet blocked the overwhelming light of Fomalhaut, leaving a pitch black circle in the middle of a distinctly eye-shaped dust cloud. The intense red colors has led to a much more famous nickname for it – the eye of Sauron.
Mon Oct 26, 2026 OCTOBER FULL MOON
The moon was full last night. When it rises in the early evening tonight, you might be able to see a little bit of shading along its western limb when you look at it with binoculars. 0ctober’s full moon is known as the Hunter’s Moon, because hunters in colonial America found its light useful when pursuing dinner in the dark. This is also the Sioux Indians’ Moon of Falling Leaves; the Big Wind Moon of the Zuni tribes; or the Cheyenne’s Moon When the Water Begins to Freeze on the edge of the Stream - must be getting cold up north. The Ponca Indians, in observance of the time when food is harvested for the winter, call this the Moon When They Store Food in Caches, while the Kiowa simply call it the Ten Colds Moon, a harbinger of the freezing weather that follows. October’s full moon was also called the Blood Moon in medieval England, a reference to the reddish coloring often displayed by the rising full moon of October.
