COLUMBIA, S.C. — We had quite a bit of photos and videos sent to us on our WLTX Weather Watchers page this past month. Some of the things you saw in the night sky included the full moon, the international space station, and even the Milky Way galaxy! We also saw some Starlink satellites pass over the Midlands which many of you saw!
Let's get into what we can see in the month of October over the Midlands.
We are expecting multiple passes of the ISS over the Midlands this week including Tuesday night right before 8 PM. Clear skies should make for some great viewing!
Another pass will take place on Thursday right before 8PM again, this pass will have good weather conditions for viewing.
The longest and brightest pass of the ISS will take place on Friday around 7:10 PM. This would be the one I would recommend to try to view as it travels almost directly overhead!
This Thursday and Friday (the 6th and 7th), the Moon will be visible in between the planets Jupiter and Saturn during most of the night.
In the morning this month, we will see the best view of Mercury of the year. Specifically on October 8th the planet will be the highest and brightest over the horizon, just look east before sunrise!
The Full Moon will be visible on both the 9th and 10th here in the Midlands. This month's moon is known as the "Hunters Moon". The Moon will rise after sunset to the east on both days.
Orionids will be occurring between October 20th and 21st. Just head out at night and try to get to a darker place to view this shower. Meteors will leave long and vivid trails and with a crescent moon we should see somewhere between 20 to 40 meteors per hour.
Let’s get to weather conditions over this week, high pressure will make for perfect night sky viewing conditions almost every night over the next 7 days. If you catch anything we talked about on a photo or video make sure to send that to us on social media, we’d love to see it!
