Today:
The eastern skies have gone to the dogs! Procyon, the star marking the Little Dog, is one of Orion’s hunting dogs, and rises at 9:50 PM. But the Great Dog comes into view a bit more than a half-hour later, as the star Sirius – the “Dog star” and the brightest star in the night skies – rises at 10:20 PM EST.
Friday:
Although not as eye-catching as the Moon’s encounter with Venus on Thursday morning, early risers still enjoy a fine meeting of a thin Crescent Moon, to the left of the bright star Spica, the only bright star in the constellation Virgo, the Virgin. They start low in the east-southeast near 5:45 AM, fading after 6 o’clock in the brightening twilight.
Saturday:
This month’s second minor meteor shower finds its peak activity over the next few nights, though, like the southern Taurid Meteor Shower early last week, the Northern Taurids tonight are a long-lasting shower, active through October and November. The numbers will be fairly low, 5 to 10 per hour, but the rocky fragments are larger than average, creating a few larger, brighter fireballs.