Jupiter's Great Red Spot remains clearly separated from the South Equatorial Belt (SE by a wide, white Red Spot Hollow. Note the small, very dark red barges following behind. The SEB seems to be calming and fading; the NEB is darker and much busier. South is up.

Christopher Go took these images on October 26th at 11:12 and 12:07 UT. Stacked-video images like these show much more detail than you're ever likely to see visually on Jupiter.

Christopher Go

Venus (magnitude –3.9) is sinking lower in the dawn every week. Look for it low in the east 60 to 30 minutes before your local sunrise time. Use binoculars to look for twinkly little Spica to Venus's lower right early in the week, directly right of Venus around November 4th (by 4°, and to Venus's upper right thereafter. Look too for Saturn much higher to their upper right.

Mars (magnitude +0.4, in central Cancer) rises around 11 p.m. standard time below Castor and Pollux in the east. It's very high in the southeast before dawn. Use binoculars to watch Mars crossing the Beehive star cluster from the mornings of October 31st to November 2nd.

In a telescope Mars is only about 8 arcseconds wide: a tiny, fuzzy gibbous blob. Mars is on its way to an unremarkable opposition late next January, when it will be 14.1 arcseconds wide.

Jupiter (magnitude –2.4, in Capricornus) shines brightly in the south at dusk and lower in the southwest later in the evening. It sets around midnight.

Saturn (magnitude +1.1, in the head of Virgo) is getting higher the east-southeast before and during dawn. More than 20° to its lower left is bright Venus.

Uranus (magnitude 5.8, below the Circlet of Pisces) is well up in the south during evening.

Neptune (magnitude 7.9, in Capricornus) is 6° east of Jupiter.

See our finder charts for Uranus and Neptune. For a guide to spotting the challenging satellites of Uranus and Neptune at any date and time (you'll need a big scope), see the October Sky & Telescope, page 59.

Pluto (14th magnitude, in Sagittarius) is disappearing into the sunset.

All descriptions that relate to your horizon or zenith — including the words up, down, right, and left — are written for the world's mid-northern latitudes. Descriptions that also depend on longitude (mainly Moon positions) are for North America. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) equals Universal Time (also known as UT, UTC, or GMT) minus 4 hours. Eastern Standard Time (EST) is UT minus 5 hours.

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