FOR the second time this year, there are a full lunar eclipse and a comet in the skies over Ireland.
The good news is that Met Eireann is forecasting reasonable cloud breaks over most of the country; the bad news is that to see this eclipse of the Harvest Moon, you'll need to be up early.
Although the eclipse will start at 2.12 am. tomorrow, the moon won't be fully in the Earth's shadow until 3.19 a.m. Even then, it probably won't darken completely, since some sunlight can still be bent around by the Earth's atmosphere, giving the moon a dark reddish glow.
Nevertheless, Dr Brendan Byrne at Armagh Observatory says the sky should darken noticeably during the hour-long eclipse, giving watchers a rare chance to see the massive planet Saturn when it is very close to the moon (it should look like a bright star to the lower left).
The dark of the eclipse is also a chance to look for Comet Hale-Bopp. This massive object, which could be as many as 25 miles across, was discovered last year and, though still many millions of miles away, has already been heralded as a great comet.
Hale-Bopp it still dim, but is already visible to the naked eye. Star-gazers tonight may be able to detect it in the southern sky, though there are no handy signposts: it's at present near a star called Mu Ophiuchus.
And already, there's news of yet another new comet - Tabur, discovered by an Australian amateur astronomer last month. This is not a bright comet, but it will be visible when it passes through the Plough in mid-October.
This busy week for star-watchers began on Sunday with the autumn equinox which marks the astronomical start of autumn, but it's also the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Neptune.
First seen on September 23rd by a Berlin astronomer, its existence had been predicted a year before by a young English mathematician, John Couch Adams.
Tonight's is the last lunar eclipse this year, but a highlight next month will be a partial eclipse of the sun, when at lunch-time on October 12th the moon's shadow will hide almost two thirds of the sun.
And the Leonid meteor shower in early November could be really spectacular. According to Dr Byrne, every 33 years or so this shower is especially heavy: in 1966 there were an amazing 30,000 meteors an hour on average, and a repeat performance is due again soon.