Planet Scenes October 2026
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October 21: Jupiter, Mars and Uranus
Mars and Jupiter are now only 9° apart in the morning sky, and Uranus is still situated between the Pleiades and Hyades. |
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October 19: Jupiter and Mars
Mars and Jupiter are now only 10° apart in the morning sky, with Mars still in Cancer and Jupiter in Leo, above Regulus. |
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October 17: Sun with Sunspots, Mercury in Libra
After some time of relative quiescence, the Sun suddenly became more active over the last two weeks and as such we can see an interesting sunspot group now more than half-way across the surface. Mercury continues to be barely visible in the evening sky about 40 minutes after sunset, now in the constellation Libra. |
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October 13: Jupiter & Mars in the Morning, Mercury & Moon in the Evening
Jupiter and Mars continue to close in the pre-dawn sky, now less than 13 degrees apart after Mars' passage through M44, the Beehive Cluster. In the evening, Mercury struggles to attain visibility but the three-day old Moon makes for a beautiful scene 40 minutes after sunset. |
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October 12: Venus in the Afternoon
Venus is rapidly approaching its inferior conjunction, now at an elongation of only 18° from the Sun, and now sporting a diameter of 56.8" arcseconds and displaying a phase angle of 5.1% today. |
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October 8: Saturn, Neptune and Asteroids
Saturn and Neptune are joined by half of the big four asteroids in the area of Cetus just below Pisces, as they all come to opposition within a 16 day window. |
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October 7: Jupiter and Mars
One morning after the lunar occultation of Jupiter, we can see the two planets arrayed almost vertically along the ecliptic in Leo and Cancer. Only five weeks before their conjunction! |
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October 6 (evening): T Coronae Borealis still quiescent
Beautiful clear skies on an evening after a perfect fall day made me want to take a picture of something but since Venus and Mercury set so early after sunset, there are no evening planets in the western sky. So another picture of Corona Borealis fills the bill LOL. |
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October 6 (morning): Lunar Occultation of Jupiter and Mars
Excellent occultation of Jupiter by the crescent Moon in the morning hours of Tuesday, October 6. As a bonus, we also see Mars approaching the Beehive Cluster from above. |
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October 5: Mercury in Virgo
Mercury is slightly higher in the west in mid-twilight, but Venus has disappeared into the twilight. |
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October 1: Venus & Mercury, then Saturn Neptune and Vesta
Venus and Mercury are extremely low in the west after sunset, requiring an almost perfect western horizon and clear skies down to the horizon to see. Saturn and Neptune are half-way up the eastern sky in mid-evening, joined also by Vesta and Pallas; I didn't catch Pallas on this image but next time I will frame the scene better to include it! |
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