{"id":657524,"date":"2026-10-17T12:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T12:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657524\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T12:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T12:12:11","slug":"the-sky-today-on-saturday-october-17-watch-wild-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657524\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Saturday, October 17: Watch Wild Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe Wild Duck Cluster is flying through the nighttime sky, a great object to check out during lengthening autumn evenings.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/wild-duck-cluster.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Wild Duck Cluster\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/the-sky-this-week\/the-sky-this-week-from-october-16-to-23-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">October 16: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-friday-october-16-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tethys and its shadow transit<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Still visible for several hours after sunset is the Wild Duck Cluster (M11), a young grouping of stars also cataloged as NGC 6705. Located in Scutum the Shield, the cluster is still 40\u00b0 high in the south an hour after sunset and more than 30\u00b0 high in the southwest an hour after that. Even with the bright waxing Moon nearby, M11\u2019s stars will readily pop into view in binoculars or a telescope, thanks to their brightness: The cluster shines at magnitude 5.8. It lies near the rich, star- and dust-filled plane of our Milky Way, although the galactic plane will likely be difficult to make out in the moonlight tonight. Come back when there\u2019s no Moon in the sky, however, and it may appear from a dark observing site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spanning roughly 14\u2019, M11 is a lovely grouping filled with numerous young suns \u2014 at least 500 of its stars are brighter than magnitude 14. Astronomers estimate its stars are roughly 250 million years old, and it lies 6,000 light-years away. The easiest way to find M11 is to start at the tail of Aquila the Eagle nearby, which hangs below the Eagle\u2019s brightest star, Altair. Use the curving path created by the stars Lambda (\u03bb) and 12 Aquilae, followed by Eta (\u03b7) Scuti, to guide your way right to M11\u2019s location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1240\" height=\"903\" data-wp-class--hide=\"state.isContentHidden\" data-wp-class--show=\"state.isContentVisible\" data-wp-init=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.showLightbox\" data-wp-on--load=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" data-wp-on--pointerdown=\"actions.preloadImage\" data-wp-on--pointerenter=\"actions.preloadImageWithDelay\" data-wp-on--pointerleave=\"actions.cancelPreload\" data-wp-on-window--resize=\"callbacks.setButtonStyles\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10172026.png\" alt=\"Simulated view of a dark evening sky, dated October 17, 2026, 2 hours after sunset, looking southwest. A thin crescent Moon glows low at lower left, with the Wild Duck Cluster marked by a blue bracket at center, near the stars lambda, 12, and eta, set against the faint band of the Milky Way. Altair is labeled at upper left.\" class=\"wp-image-177611\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\t\tThe Wild Duck Cluster (M11) remains high enough for easy observing several hours after sunset in mid-October; on the 17th, the waxing Moon is nearby. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Sunrise: 7:13 A.M. <br \/>Sunset: 6:17 P.M. <br \/>Moonrise: 1:59 P.M. <br \/>Moonset: 11:05 P.M. <br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (45%) <br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The Wild Duck Cluster is flying through the nighttime sky, a great object to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-657524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}