Astronomy lovers, October brings with it a whole new set of reasons to gaze at the night sky.

On October 7th, about an hour before sunrise, in the east, you will see Venus, Saturn, Regulus, and a lovely crescent moon nestled closely together.

They all made a similar appearance last month, but they were low in the sky, so trees or buildings may have obstructed your view.

Now, they should be higher so that you can get a clear shot with your camera if you like.

Since the sun rises around 7 a.m. that day, you won't have to be up quite as early to see it, either.

But a later sunrise isn't the only sign of the changing seasons.

The handle of the big dipper points to Arcturus, an orange star that will be setting in the west in the evening -- that's a sign of autumn.

On the other side of the sky, in the late evening, a rising cluster of stars announces the coming of the winter constellations.

It's commonly known as “The Seven Sisters”.

"The official name is the Pleiades. It's an open star cluster and it used to be a nebula—a gaseous nebula—and then they slowly blow off their gas. And so there’s still just a little bit of a shell of some gas if you look with binocs [binoculars]," says Chris Janssen, director of the Wausau West High School Planetarium. “

The Seven Sisters are located in the constellation Taurus, which is a bull; and they’re on his back.

But the celestial *headliner* this month is the Orionid meteor shower.

That'll peak in the wee hours of the morning on the 21st and 22nd.

The meteors in that shower are actually chunks of ice and dust left behind by Halley's Comet.

"So, if you didn't get to see Comet Halley in 1986, you can go see junk left behind by Comet Halley on October 21st," laughs Janssen.

If you need help finding any of these constellations, you can get a star map by clicking on the link below and then clicking on “Star Map” once you reach the page.