Worth Waking Early

The moon wanes through morning skies until new moon on the 11th. Before dawn Friday you’ll find Luna barely two degrees north of bright Jupiter. Early Saturday the moon joins brilliant Venus and much dimmer Mars, forming a tight triangle easily within the view of binoculars. Use them to scan the eastern horizon a half-hour before sunrise for fleeting Mercury.
    Those binoculars will come in handy at dusk too, as Saturn appears very low in the southwest before setting from sight.
    In between dusk and dawn, keep a lookout for errant meteors from the Taurid shower. Peaking the nights of the 5th and 6th with five to 10 meteors an hour, the Taurids are active from September into December. What it doesn’t provide in quantity, the Taurids can make up for in quality, often producing extraordinarily bright meteors with long-lasting trails, including the occasional fireball.