Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Friday, October 29th.  The sun will rise at 8:16.  It’ll be up for 10 hours and 19 minutes, setting at 6:35.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 12:12 tomorrow morning.  |   Not all the ghosts and goblins out Sunday will be children.  One will be out every night, because it’s a star.  Its name is Algol, from the Arabic for Ghoul Star or Demon Star.  The Chinese had a name for it that meant ‘piled up corpses’.  It’s the second brightest star in the constellation Perseus the hero, rising in the northeast this evening.  The star is located where artists have drawn the severed head of Medusa, whom he had slain.  Medusa was so ugly that she turned all who gazed upon her to stone.  Algol is her still glittering eye.  Astronomers finally found out what was wrong with Algol.  It does a slow 6 hour wink every two days 21 hours, because it is two stars that eclipse each other. [Medusa will not be winking Halloween evening.]

Text in brackets were omitted in the program due to time constraints.