Daily Suspicious0bserver's Weather Post:
September 30, 2014
What's in the sky tonight?
September 30, 2014
-Arcturus is the bright star due west at nightfall. It's an orange giant 37 light-years away. Off to its right in the northwest is the Big Dipper, most of whose stars are about 80 light-years away. They're both sinking lower every week now.
-Saturn (magnitude +0.6, in Libra) is sinking away into the afterglow of sunset. Look for it well to the right of the Mars-Antares pair, and probably a little lower depending on your latitude.
Astro Picture of the Day:
September 30, 2014
Source:
Have you ever seen an entire rainbow? From the ground, typically, only the top portion of a rainbow is visible because directions toward the ground have fewer raindrops. From the air, though, the entire 360 degree circle of a rainbow is more commonly visible. Pictured here, a full circle rainbow was captured over Cottesloe Beach near Perth, Australia last year by a helicopter flying between a setting sun and a downpour. An observer-dependent phenomenon primarily caused by the internal reflection of sunlight by raindrops, the 84-degree diameter rainbow followed the helicopter, intact, for about 5 kilometers. As a bonus, a second rainbow that was more faint and color-reversed was visible outside the first.