{"id":662991,"date":"2026-10-23T09:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662991\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T09:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T09:38:09","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-october-23-nab-neptune-near-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/662991\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Friday, October 23: Nab Neptune near the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe solar system\u2019s most distant planet shares the sky with the nearly Full Moon this evening, with Saturn standing nearby.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1018\" height=\"776\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ASY-SM1026_08.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"The sky on October 23, 2026, at midnight, looking south\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tLate in the month, the Moon forms a triangle with Saturn and Neptune \u2014 note the latter requires binoculars or a telescope to spot. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly\t\t\t\t\t<\/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 22: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-october-22-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iapetus at superior conjunction<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The nearly Full Moon passes 5\u00b0 north of Neptune at 11 P.M. EDT, creating a celestial triangle with the ice giant and nearby gas giant Saturn. Our satellite and Neptune share the constellation Pisces, while Saturn floats in northwestern Cetus.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By early evening, the trio stands above the southeastern horizon, and by local midnight they are high in the south. Neptune is 4\u00b0 south of (below) the Moon, while Saturn is 8\u00b0 to our satellite\u2019s southeast (left). Only the latter planet is visible to the naked eye, as Neptune requires binoculars or a telescope to view. With the bright Moon nearby, the latter is your best bet, as it offers higher magnification. Through a scope, Neptune will look like a \u201cflat,\u201d bluish-gray star, with a tiny disk extending 2\u201d in diameter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saturn is much more impressive, with its disk 19\u201d across and its rings some 44\u201d from end to end. Its brightest moon, Titan, is just to the planet\u2019s northeast, while around midnight CDT fainter Rhea and Tethys are east of the ringed world and Dione stands to its west. Iapetus, around 11th magnitude, remains relatively nearby, now about 2\u2019 southeast of the planet. It\u2019s still a great opportunity to catch so many of Saturn\u2019s moons huddled close together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> Sunrise: 7:19 A.M. <br \/>Sunset: 6:09 P.M. <br \/>Moonrise: 4:41 P.M. <br \/>Moonset: 4:26 A.M. <br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (95%) <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 solar system\u2019s most distant planet shares the sky with the nearly Full Moon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-662991","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\/662991","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=662991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}