Wow – a meteor shower with an average rate of just 15 “shooting stars” an hour at its peak but one that has on occasion suddenly exploded at a rate of 40 per second! That’s the famed annual Leonid’s, which occur this year on the night of November 16th into the morning of the 17th. No other shower in recorded history has produced such an intense burst of activity—nor been so erratic and unpredictable.

In October the planet Mars makes another of its once every 26 month visits to the Earth and blazes like a ruddy-orange beacon above the eastern horizon after sunset. Normally the most disappointing of the five bright naked-eye planets (see below), it now takes center stage and dominates the night sky!

There is nothing so lovely as seeing a big bright full-Moon rising over the eastern horizon. But when our satellite is around its full phase it is the bane of serious stargazers (who are often called “Moon dodgers”!). Although moonlight doesn’t interfere with the planets and brightest stars, it brightens the sky enough to mask fainter wonders like star clusters, nebulae and galaxies.

For many skywatchers, this is “meteor month” — so named after the famed Perseid Meteor Shower that peaks each year during the second week of August. And while not normally the richest of these annual celestial fireworks displays, it’s certainly the best-known and among the most reliable of them all. The only uncertainty involved in viewing such events (aside, of course, from clear skies!) is if the presence of a bright Moon will offer interference. This time, the answer is “yes, it will” or “no, it won’t”—depending on what time of the night you go looking.

Everyone loves viewing a total eclipse of the Moon. But have you ever seen a “penumbral” eclipse of the Moon? If not, this month presents an ideal opportunity for witnessing one.

If your answer is “no” then this month offers an excellent opportunity to see this elusive little world. Sadly, legend has deterred many from looking for it—including a number of seasoned amateur astronomers.

The mild evenings of May are an ideal time to see the most famous of all star patterns—the Big Dipper. (Many think of it as a constellation but it’s actually an “asterism,” being a distinctive part of Ursae Major, the Big Bear of the heavens.) And it can be used as your personal guide through the starry spring sky.

It seems that most of the prominent annual meteor showers happen in late summer through the end of the year. Thus we’ve never previewed any events here from winter into spring. So meteor enthusiasts won’t feel deprived, this month we provide details on a well-known but seldom observed meager display worth watching.

If you have noticed a bright object in the western sky after sunset over the past couple of months, that’s our beautiful “Sister Planet” Venus. It’s the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. And this month it is extra luminous, as it climbs up higher some 46 degrees east of our Daytime Star (at its “greatest eastern elongation” in astronomical terms).

There appears to be quite a bit of fascination by the general public with the types of Moons mentioned in our title. So it seems appropriate to examine what “super” and “blue” actually mean in describing our lovely “Queen of the Night.” And it’s not quite what is implied in either of these cases!