Our landscape is slowly transforming itself all throughout New England as more and more color continues to creep through our foliage. This is a glorious time of year. The days and nights are getting cooler and crisper, which makes for ideal conditions to view the wonders of the night sky, and better enjoy and appreciate more of their mysteries.

The main highlights in October include another total lunar eclipse, some nice conjunctions, the Orionid meteor shower and a comet that will get very close to crashing into Mars.

Additional Images

This chart represents the sky as it appears over Maine during October. The stars are shown as they appear at 10:30 p.m. early in the month, at 9:30 p.m. at midmonth and at 8:30 p.m. at month’s end. No planets are visible at chart time. To use the map, hold it vertically and turn it so that the direction you are facing is at the bottom. Sky chart prepared by George Ayers

The total lunar eclipse will take place Oct. 8. This is the second in a very rare tetrad of four consecutive total lunar eclipses with no partial eclipses in between. That has only happened seven times in the last 2,000 years.

This eclipse will be visible from nearly all of the Americas and, as a bonus, because this full moon will happen just two days after its monthly perigee, it will be 5.3 percent larger than the first eclipse in this tetrad back on April 15. For us in this part of the country, the eclipse will be visible toward sunrise.

The partial eclipse will start at 5:15 a.m., the total part of this eclipse will start at 6:25 a.m. and last for an hour until 7:24 a.m. The moon will set and the sun will rise before the total eclipse phase ends, but it will still be a dramatic eclipse if it is clear that morning.

There are several stages of a total lunar eclipse to watch for and be aware of, and to understand how they are caused. Technically this eclipse will begin at 4:45 a.m., but that will not be visible because the moon is just entering the penumbra, the thinner part of the earth’s shadow.

Half an hour later the moon will be deeper into the penumbra of our shadow and the noticeable part of this eclipse begins. If this were to be only a partial eclipse, it would not progress farther into the umbra, or deepest part of our shadow.

Keep watching closely as more and more of our only natural satellite sinks deeper and deeper into our shadow. Just over one hour later, the total eclipse begins at 6:25 a.m. Through a telescope you can watch the edge of our shadow slowly engulfing one lunar feature after another in real time. You will also attain a great sense of the constant motion of the moon around the earth for those rare and precious moments.

As the moon completely enters our umbral shadow, the third stage, the total eclipse, begins. This will last for an hour, but the sun will rise and the moon will set before this stage ends for us here in New England. If the earth did not have an atmosphere, you would no longer be able to see any of the moon during this stage of the eclipse. Our atmosphere acts like a giant lens and bends the light of the sun around us and onto the moon, allowing us to see many dramatic shades of red, copper, and orange during total lunar eclipses.

The exact color depends on the state of our atmosphere at the time along the sunrise-sunset line. The color will be lighter and brighter if the air is clear and much darker if there is a lot of pollution or if a volcano recently erupted. I remember a total lunar eclipse back in 1991 when the full moon nearly disappeared completely because of all the dust from the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. That dust lasted for a long time and created some spectacular sunrises and sunsets that were almost as dramatic as northern lights.

A great way to appreciate and really understand what is going on during a total lunar eclipse is to know that what you are really seeing during this phase is the combined effect of all the sunrises and sunsets on earth simultaneously projected onto the moon and reflected back to us. We can always see our little local sunrise or sunset from earth, but this is the only time that you can see all of them at once. Carefully notice the exact color and all the subtle details as it continues to change through the course of this eclipse.

Every one of them is always unique and different because all the many conditions creating this exact effect are always changing. It is similar to every snowflake being different.

Another good way to better understand this eclipse from a fourth dimensional respect is to understand that both the earth and moon are always casting their shadows into space, and that eclipses are only possible when these shadows align precisely, which happens twice a year during eclipse seasons. The moon’s shadow cone is about a quarter of a million miles long and just reaches the earth, causing a solar eclipse. The earth’s shadow cone is about four times longer and easily reaches the moon, creating a lunar eclipse, which can usually be seen by about half the earth. Try to get some good photographs of this memorable event.

Saturn will still be visible low in the western evening sky until the end of October. Mars will set about three hours after the sun all month long. That is because the red planet is moving eastward along the ecliptic at nearly the same rate that the sun appears to be moving in our sky, the net result being that it appears to stay in about the same place. Mars will start October just 4 degrees above Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius, whose name means “rival of Mars.”

Notice that they will both be about the same color and brightness. The waxing crescent moon will pass just above Mars on the 27th and 28th. On Oct. 19, Comet Siding Spring will pass within just 80,000 miles of Mars, or one-third the Earth-moon distance. It could create some meteor showers on the red planet, and precautions have been taken to protect the two rovers and the two missions currently orbiting Mars.

Jupiter continues to rise earlier each morning and will rise around 1 a.m. by the end of the month. It is slowly getting brighter as it is getting closer to the earth and will cross into Leo by the middle of October. Watch as the waning crescent moon passes close to the king of the planets one hour before sunrise on the mornings of the 17th and 18th.

We will lose Venus in the morning sky early in October. Mercury will show up low in the morning sky 30 minutes before sunrise during the last week of the month.

Watch the waning crescent moon pass close to it on the 21st and 22nd.

October Highlights

Oct. 1. First-quarter moon is at 3:33 p.m. On this day in 1897, the Yerkes 40-inch refractor was dedicated. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time and remains the largest refracting telescope in the world.

Oct. 4. Sputnik 1 was launched on this day in 1957, beginning the space race. World space week begins today and this is the fall version of Astronomy Day.

Oct. 5. Edwin Hubble found Cepheid variables in the Andromeda Galaxy on this day in 1923.

Oct. 6. The moon is at perigee, or closest to the earth today.

Oct. 7. Neils Bohr was born on this day in 1885. He was one of the discoverers of quantum mechanics with Heisenberg, Dirac and many others.

Oct. 8. A total lunar eclipse takes place this morning. Full moon is at 6:51 a.m. This is also called the Hunter’s Moon.

Oct. 9. Kepler’s supernova was first observed on this day in 1604.

Oct. 14. The world’s first supersonic flight took place on this day in 1947.

Oct. 15. Last-quarter moon is at 3:12 p.m.

Oct. 21. The Orionid Meteor shower peaks this morning and the next. Caused by Halley’s Comet, this shower will only produce about 20 meteors per hour. The other annual shower caused by Halley’s Comet are the May 4 Eta Aquarids. The moon is close to new for the Orionids this year, so it will be worth trying to see some of these tiny pieces of the most famous of all comets crashing into our atmosphere.

Oct. 23. New moon is at 5:57 p.m. There will also be a partial solar eclipse today, but Maine will be the only state that won’t be able to see any of it.

Oct. 30. First-quarter moon is at 10:48 p.m.

Bernie Reim of Wells is co-director of the Astronomical Society of Northern New England.

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