The Moon and Venus before dawn<\/a><\/p>\nBy 10 P.M. local daylight time, the Pleiades (M45) is already 30\u00b0 high in the east. This lovely naked-eye cluster is well known across the world, sparkling in northwestern Taurus. Several of its stars are visible without optical aid \u2014 most observers can see five to seven individual stars in the shape of a tiny dipper (although don\u2019t confuse this with the much larger Little Dipper in the north).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through binoculars or a low-power telescope view (try your finder scope), many more stars begin to appear. The Pleiades stretches about 110\u2019 on the sky \u2014 about the width of three and a half Full Moons \u2014 and contains some 500 stars, although only about 100 or so are visible under lower magnifications. This open cluster is roughly 100 million years old and is about 380 light-years from Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently located south of the Pleiades is the ice giant Uranus. Glowing at magnitude 5.6, the planet is best seen in binoculars or a telescope. From magnitude 2.9 Alcyone (Eta [\u03b7] Tauri), simply drop 4.3\u00b0 south-southeast to land on Uranus. Appearing as a \u201cflat\u201d, grayish star in your optics, the planet\u2019s disk is some 4\u201d wide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunrise:\u00a07:16 A.M.
Sunset:\u00a06:12 P.M.
Moonrise:\u00a06:27 A.M.\u00a0
Moonset:\u00a05:38 P.M.
Moon Phase:\u00a0New
*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.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, October 21, is a big day! Before dawn, the Orionid meteor shower peaks as the Moon reaches New phase at 8:25 A.M. EDT. Additionally, Comet C\/2025 A6 (Lemmon) passes closest to Earth today, skimming some 28.6 million miles (46 million kilometers) from our planet.<\/p>\n
![\"Peak](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ASY-SM1025_02.png\")
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\t\tThe Orionids\u2019 radiant is highest early in the morning. Uranus may be visible to sharp-eyed observers without optical aid. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly<\/p>\n
The Orionids are best viewed in the early-morning hours before sunrise. The shower\u2019s radiant, the point from which its meteors appear to emanate, is highest in the sky around 5:30 A.M. local daylight time. Step outside and look south to locate the constellation Orion; the radiant is just above the Hunter\u2019s red giant shoulder, Betelgeuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, scan the sky to either side of this point \u2014 meteors will have the longest trains about 40\u00b0\u00a0 away from the radiant. Some 20 meteors per hour are expected this morning, so it\u2019s worth taking a look.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve also got a clear northeastern horizon, Comet Lemmon is some 4\u00b0 high by 6 A.M. local daylight time. The comet is now 5th magnitude, readily visible through binoculars, a telescope, and in smartphone images. It\u2019s roughly even in altitude with blazing Venus, visible in Virgo, but Lemmon lies in Bo\u00f6tes, nearly 40\u00b0 northeast of the planet. This morning the comet is only 1.7\u00b0 from magnitude 3.6 Rho (\u03c1) Bo\u00f6tis. Lemmon is rising but the sky will quickly start growing brighter as sunrise approaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Path](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ASY-SM1025_04.png\")
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\t\tThis chart shows the path of Comet Lemmon from Oct. 13 to 23. Note that only deep-sky objects 8th magnitude or brighter are shown. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List One of the most famous clusters in the sky, the Pleiades leads the figure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,2928,141,43844,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-87864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-observing","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sky-tonight","13":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pleiades.jpg\")
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