Oct 2, 2026 · 24 min · 8 segments
This month Leon & Sharna explore the October night sky in Perth, featuring meteor showers, giant tarantulas, and moon potatoes. You'll spot Venus and Mercury alongside the Moon in the western sky, and…
So as the sun is setting, we face roughly in that direction, and that defines our direction, which is, of course, west.
And the reason I have got us facing this way to begin with is you don't even have to move.
As the sky gets dark, up high in the western sky, you will still be able to see the beautiful, bright parts of the Milky Way galaxy.
Beautiful.
And the way you know you're looking at the Milky Way galaxy, like the bright central regions, is the standout constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius.
Really easy to see.
The Scorpion we talk about a lot on this podcast.
There's the hook-shaped pattern of stars up in the sky there.
Much
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the centre of the galaxy, but it's more of a spaghetti mess to look at.
But if you do happen to have an app like Stellarium, then you can definitely use that to help you find Sagittarius as well.
But most importantly, once you're looking there, you're looking towards the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
And I guess I want to bring to people's attention, we've been talking about this the last couple of months, where the Milky Way has been really high directly overhead, sort of during winter.
But yeah, as we come into spring, the Milky Way noticeably moves towards the western sky.
So that's the sort of basic starting stargazing.
However, I'm sure there's a couple of planets out there.
Where do we go for planets, Shana?
Yeah, I want to stay facing west.
Ah, yes.
So as the sun is setting, we face roughly in that direction, and that defines our direction, which is, of course, west.
And the reason I have got us facing this way to begin with is you don't even have to move.
As the sky gets dark, up high in the western sky, you will still be able to see the beautiful, bright parts of the Milky Way galaxy.
Beautiful.
And the way you know you're looking at the Milky Way galaxy, like the bright central regions, is the standout constellations of Scorpius and Sagittarius.
Really easy to see.
The Scorpion we talk about a lot on this podcast.
There's the hook-shaped pattern of stars up in the sky there.
Much
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the centre of the galaxy, but it's more of a spaghetti mess to look at.
But if you do happen to have an app like Stellarium, then you can definitely use that to help you find Sagittarius as well.
But most importantly, once you're looking there, you're looking towards the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.
And I guess I want to bring to people's attention, we've been talking about this the last couple of months, where the Milky Way has been really high directly overhead, sort of during winter.
But yeah, as we come into spring, the Milky Way noticeably moves towards the western sky.
So that's the sort of basic starting stargazing.
However, I'm sure there's a couple of planets out there.
Where do we go for planets, Shana?
Yeah, I want to stay facing west.
Ah, yes.
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