Welcome to the 11th edition of 6 Storm Team Starwatch! This is a blog that will be posted weekly that will list events happening in the sky this week! 

Wednesday, October 9th – Friday, October 11th 2019

This week several different meteor showers will peak! The Draconid, Southern Taurids and Delta Aurigid  meteor showers will peak on successive nights, but none of these showers are anticipated to produce more than just a few meteors a night.

Also on October 9th, NASA will launch the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission. This will result in the imaging of the ionosphere, which is the upper part of the Earth’s atmosphere. This is where X-rays and UV radiation interact (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/ionosphere). The goal of this mission is to image the ionosphere and measure the atmosphere it flies through. The mission will assist in understanding how the ionosphere can interrupt radio communication, navigation and imaging systems. The launch is not expected to be visible.

Finally, on Thursday October 10th the Moon will be at apogee, or the point farthest from Earth in its orbit (https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SKYCAL/SKYCAL.html).

Sunday, October 13th 2019

Tonight is the October Full Moon (https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SKYCAL/SKYCAL.html). This Full Moon is called the Hunter’s Moon and the Hunter’s Moon always follows the Harvest Moon but can occur in either October or November (https://www.almanac.com/content/full-moon-october).

Special thanks to Tony Rice for this information!  Additionally, the following sites were used:

https://www.almanac.com/content/full-moon-october
https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/wp-content/uploads/sites/193/2016/08/geminid20091209-full.jpg https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SKYCAL/SKYCAL.html https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/ionosphere