The moon reaches its new phase tomorrow, Saturday, October 10, beginning the darkest and clearest stretch of sky this month. The best viewing window runs from tonight through approximately October 16, before the moon begins to wax back toward full on October 26. This is an excellent week for a stargazing walk on the golf course (at the dark sky park) or a drive up Brockway Mountain.
The sun also remains active. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm watch for the overnight hours of October 8 into October 9, after a coronal mass ejection left the sun on October 6, and aurora reached south into the northern United States, including Michigan. Additional flare-ups are possible through the rest of the month, so it is worth checking NOAA’s real-time aurora forecast at spaceweather.gov each evening and watching the northern horizon from a dark, open vantage point on the property.
Mark the calendar for the Orionid meteor shower, which peaks the night of October 21 into the morning of October 22. The Orionids are debris from Halley’s Comet and typically produce fifteen to twenty-five meteors per hour under a dark sky. A waxing gibbous moon, about eighty percent lit, will interfere during the early evening this year, so the better show will be in the hour or two before dawn, after the moon has set.
The clock is also running on the season. The park closes for the year on November 15 and reopens December 15. Between now and then, the next new moon arrives November 9, offering one final dark stretch, roughly November 5 through 13, before the lights go down on the season.
Guests of the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge may borrow a telescope from the Outdoor Activity Center to make the most of any of these nights.