{"id":670747,"date":"2026-10-31T09:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670747\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T09:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:54:09","slug":"the-sky-today-on-saturday-october-31-glimpse-the-ghostly-phantom-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/670747\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Saturday, October 31: Glimpse the ghostly Phantom Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tStunning face-on spiral M74 is visible after dark this evening, showing off its bright nucleus and fainter asymmetrical arms\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/M74.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Photograph of the face-on spiral galaxy M74, with a golden-yellow core and tightly wound, blue-white spiral arms threaded with dark dust lanes and scattered pink star-forming regions. Numerous white and orange stars and a few small, distant galaxies are scattered across the black background.\"\/><\/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-30-to-november-6-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">October 30: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-friday-october-30-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mars approaches Leo<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Let\u2019s send off spooky season on a high note this Halloween with M74, also known as the Phantom Galaxy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best time to catch this ghostly galaxy is after darkness falls but before moonrise. Located in eastern Pisces, M74 reaches an altitude of 45\u00b0 in the east by 9 P.M. local daylight time. You can find it just over 1\u00b0 northeast of 4th-magnitude Eta (\u03b7) Piscium, or by skimming 6.6\u00b0 southwest of\u00a0 brighter 3rd-magnitude Beta (\u03b2) Arietis, also called Sheratan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ninth-magnitude M74 spans roughly 11\u2019 in diameter \u2014 that\u2019s quite big, because this galaxy is so nearby, just 24 million light-years away. Because it is so large, its light is spread out over a significant area, lowering its overall surface brightness and making this galaxy harder to spot than its magnitude would imply \u2014 hence its \u201cphantom\u201d moniker.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once you do find it, you\u2019ll see that M74 is a lovely face-on spiral with a bright core wrapped in fainter arms, the latter of which are best seen in 8-inch and larger scopes. The arms are mottled with bright regions of star formation, and a nebula filter can help improve the view. You may also notice the arms are not quite symmetric: the western arm is much longer than the stubby eastern one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 7:28 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 5:59 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 11:08 P.M.<br \/>Moonset: 1:33 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (58%)<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\">Daylight saving time ends at 2 A.M. local daylight time on November 1, when clocks fall back one hour to 1 A.M. local standard time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Early on the 1st, the waning gibbous Moon is in Cancer, just west of the naked-eye Beehive Cluster (M44). The cluster might be hard to catch today without optical aid due to the nearby light of our satellite, but should show up nicely in binoculars or even your telescope\u2019s finder scope. Its stars are spread so widely \u2014 across nearly 100\u2019 of sky \u2014 that observing them through a telescope at higher magnification only shows the cluster\u2019s central regions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1144\" height=\"933\" 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\/11012026.png\" alt=\"Simulated view of a dark predawn sky, dated November 1, 2026, 5 A.M., looking southeast. A thin crescent Moon is labeled at top center, with the open cluster M44 marked by a blue bracket just below it. Mars and Jupiter are labeled lower left of center, with Jupiter below Mars and Regulus just below Jupiter. Procyon is labeled at upper right.\" class=\"wp-image-178091\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>\t\tAs November opens, the Moon floats in Cancer, not far from the Beehive Cluster (M44). To their east, Jupiter and Mars dominate Leo, with Jupiter halfway between Mars and Regulus, the Lion\u2019s alpha star. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">East of the Moon, Mars and Jupiter shine brightly in western Leo, to the upper right of the bright star Regulus. Brighter Jupiter should be particularly easy to spot, located halfway between the Red Planet and the blue-white star.\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 Stunning face-on spiral M74 is visible after dark this evening, showing off its bright&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-670747","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\/670747","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=670747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}