Hampshire Astronomical Group

Open Evenings at the Observatory

We have now set some dates for Open Evenings from January to April 2027.

Open Evening Dates Available are:

Sunday 17th January 2027

Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th February 2027

Sunday 28th February 2027

Sunday 14th March 2027

Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th April 2027 -- Adults Only Evening 

Tickets can be purchased on our website through Ticket Tailor.

https://hantsastro.org.uk/openevenings/index.php

Please Note: Minimum age is set at 8 years old.

Tickets are selling fast.

New dates for September to December 2027 Open Evenings will be uploaded to the website on the 15th September 2027.

Announcement posted by : Website Team

Astronomical Events for October 2026

Moon

Third Quarter 3rd October

New Moon 10th October

First Quarter 18th October

Full Moon 26th October

5 Oct – 06:08 BST – The planet seen 40 arcminutes south of the crescent Moon is Mars.

7 Oct – morning – This is a good time to view Flamsteed, a 22km crater.  The low Sun angle will reveal some relief features in the region.

14 Oct – 22:00 BST – 0.4° north of the Moon is Antares.

26 Oct – 04:12 UT – Today’s full moon is known as a perigee full Moon, which means it is slightly brighter and with a larger apparent diameter than the average full Moon.

28 Oct – 18:02 UT – The Moon reaches Perigee.

Clair-obscur Effects

20 Oct – evening – When the light of the lunar dawn hits the peaks of the Montes Jura mountain range, this creates the effect known as the Jewelled Handle.

Lunar Occultations

19 Oct – 17:00 BST – Plato’s Hook can be seen; this effect is created when the “curved” rim-peak shadow falls on the floor of the crater Plato.

28 Oct – early morning – The Moon will cross the northern portion of the Pleiades, occulting several stars.  Start watching from 23:45 UT on 27 October until 02:30 UT on the 28^th October.

Planets

1 Oct – Saturn is approaching opposition, making this a good time to look at the planet’s rings where they will appear to brighten due to a phenomenon called the opposition effect.

4 Oct – Saturn reaches opposition, when the rings will be at their brightest.

4 Oct – Minor planet 2 Pallas is at opposition and can be seen in Cetus.

6 Oct – 11:24 BST – A good opportunity to view Jupiter in daylight when it will be 30 arcminutes north of the crescent Moon.

10 Oct – Mars will begin to cross the middle of the M44 (the Beehive Cluster) and will take three days to cross the open cluster.

12 Oct – Mercury reaches greatest elongation, however its poor position at sunset makes it unlikely to be seen.

13 Oct – Vesta (mag. +6.5) reaches opposition and can be seen in Cetus.

24 Oct – Venus reaches inferior conjunction when it will pass 6.5° south of the Sun, as it transitions from the evening to the morning sky.

31 Oct – Start of an alignment between Mars, Jupiter and Regulus.

Meteor Shower

21 Oct – evening – Peak of the Orionid meteor shower.  Best time to view is for 4-5 hours on the morning of 21 October, and 3 hours before dawn on 22 October.

Comets

October – Comet 11P/Tempel-Swift-LINEAR can be seen using a 200mm scope or larger.  The RA and Dec coordinates for October are: 1 Oct – RA 01h 56m, Dec +39° 39’; 10 Oct – RA 02h 09m, Dec +38° 58’; 20 Oct – RA 02h 23m, Dec +36° 42’; 30 Oct – RA 02h 36m, Dec +32° 10’.

Miscellaneous

25 Oct – 02:00 BST – End of Daylight saving when the clocks go back one hour to 01:00 UT.

Binocular Objects

Rho and 94 Piscium – A pair of stars 7.5 arcminutes apart.  The more orange of the two stars is 94 Piscium.

TX Piscium – this is the easternmost star in the Circlet of Pisces and is it also one of the reddest to be seen in the night sky.

Saturn and Neptune – Focus on Saturn, try and minimise the planet’s colour fringing.  Titan can be seen about an arcminute from Saturn.  To the right of Saturn and slightly above is Neptune which will be 4° west of 10 Ceti.

Asteroid 4 Vesta – At the beginning of the month Vesta will be in line with a pair of 5^th mag. Stars.  As it nears opposition on the 13^th it will have travelled about 7° towards 25 Ceti.

Deep Sky Objects

NGC 40 (the Bow-Tie Nebula) – RA 00h 13m 00s, Dec +72° 31’ 18” – a planetary nebula located in the eastern part of Cepheus, close to Cassiopeia.  It can be seen using a 100mm scope and will show a circular, grey glow just under 1 arcminute across along with the central star, but a 200mm scope may hint at the structure that gives it its name, and a 300mm scope will show the nebula’s brighter southeastern edge.

NGC 281 (the Pacman Nebula) – RA 00h 52m 59s, Dec +56° 37’ 18” – this is an HII ionized region in Cassiopeia.  A 150mm scope will show a faint glow with a low surface brightness and appears approximately 12 arcminutes across with four embedded stars within.  With a 120x magnification, it will be possible to see the central star as a close triple.  Larger scopes will show the emission nebula appear to be broken into separate areas.  In dark skies, and using a nebular filter, it may be possible to see the structure.

NGC 457 (the Owl Cluster) – RA 01h 19m 32s, Dec +58° 17‘ 26“ – this is an open cluster in Cassiopeia.  A 150mm scope will be more than 40 stars in a 15 arcminute circle, and 100 stars can be seen using a 200mm scope. This nebula also has the name The ET Cluster due to the line of stars forming a right angle to the main rectangular block which can be visualised as the outstretched arms of an alien, with the Phi and HIP 6229 its eyes.

NGC 488 – RA 01h 21m 47s, Dec +05° 15’ 24” – a face-on spiral galax in Pisces.  A 80mm telescope will show it as a smudge of nebulosity, so it is best seen using a scope of 500mm or more.

NGC 660 – RA 01h 43m 01s, Dec +13° 38’ 42” – a peculiar spiral galaxy in Pisces, belonging to a rare class called polar-ring galaxies, and exhibits an outer orbital ring, a belt of gas and stars that rotates over its poles.  A 150mm scope will show it as an oval glow.

NGC 474 – RA 01h 20m 07s, Dec +03° 24’ 55” – a lenticular galaxy in Pisces 250,000 light years across.  Best seen using telescopes 400mm or larger.

NGC 7789 (Caroline’s Rose) – RA 23h 57m 24s, Dec +56° 42’ 29” – an open cluster in the constellation of Cassiopeia, with an apparent diameter of 16 arcminutes.  This cluster is about 1.6 billion years old and 16 arcminutes across.  A 150mm scope will show about 50 stars, whilst a 250mm scope will resolve about 150 stars.

M74 (NGC 628) – RA 01h 36m 42s, Dec +15°, 47‘ 01“ – a spiral galaxy in Pisces.  A 200mm scope will show its unresolved spiral arms as a misty halo, and a 300mm scope will show some unevenly bright patches.

IC 1805 – RA 02h 32m 41s, Dec +61° 27‘ 24“ – this is a star cluster + nebula in Cassiopeia and forms the large Heart Nebula.  A 150mm scope will show around 25 stars surrounded by a haze; a 250mm scope will show the main group better, along with many fainter stars shimmering in the background.

Moon Image Credit: Steve Broadbent
Saturn Image Credit: NASA

Announcement posted by : Website Team