Section updated: September 5th, 2025
This region is chock full of interesting things to see. We’ll check on the status of T Corona Borealis and examine the globular clusters of M3 in Canes Venatici, M5 in Serpens Caput and Hercules’ M13 & M92 , M53 in Coma Berenices along with its Coma Star Cluster. Depending upon the conditions, we can try for a few galaxies that night, or even Omega Centauri in the south. If that is visible to us, then after 9:15 pm, we could push on toward Rigel Kentaurus (a.k.a “Alpha Centauri” the next star out), or Becrux and Gacrux of the Southern Cross. (They would be a challenge through the skyglow of Ft. Lauderdale & Miami, so there is no guarantee there!) By 10 pm, those constellations toward the Milky Way Galaxy’s central bulge will be appearing to us, such as Libra (see if you can notice the supposed “greenish” tint of its star Zuben Elgenubi!), M10 & M12 in Ophiuchus the serpent bearer, and Scorpio with its Cat’s Eye Nebula (M4) and the Northern Jewel box (NGC 6231), as will the northern summer constellations, like Lyra, its star Vega and its Ring Nebula - M57. The summer constellations dominate our view for the night.
Sept. 7th Lunar Eclipse for Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia! Clear skies to you all! Do note the shape of the Earth’s shadow as our Moon moves into it during the start of the eclipse and when it exits out of it. People everywhere will be able to see that it appears round each time. This is because our planet is a sphere and only a sphere can cast out a round shadow no matter where people will see it, east, west, central, north or south of the viewing. It was Pythagoras who realized the meaning of the shadow as proof of the Earth’s ball-like shape and here is your chance to witness the proof for yourself! Folks in Delhi, India can watch the show at starting at their 10 pm, reach totality at 12:34 am and finish at 3:24 am! Do witness it and enjoy the awe of the show!
ε Perseid meteor shower will have difficulties with the just barely waning gibbous Moon on Sept 9th. For this one, I would advise people to get sleep!
I’m changing this session to Friday to celebrate Saturn’s Opposition! We’ll focus on the ringed planet all night long as it appears in the direction that is opposite in the sky from the Sun. We will be in the direct line between the outer planet and our star, which means that we’ll be as close to the planet as we can be for this orbital pass. That should make it look nice, big and detailed in the telescope!
Note that the planet appears rather unusual this year as we are looking at it almost right in its ring’s geometric plane. So, its moons can cross in front of or behind it and the planet is experiencing eclipses this year for the first time in over 14 years. Well as such, the night of our session will have a “Hollywood ending” starting after 12:30 am, as we will be able to see its moons of Enceladus AND Titan cross in front of Saturn and cast its shadows on the planet. Titan has a thick orange atmosphere, so its shadow will appear fuzzier than those of Jupiter’s moons. And we’ll make note of where Titan’s shadow appears on Saturn’s orb with respect to Titan itself. By witnessing such details is a simple way to recognize and demonstrate that our planet moves in its orbit around the Sun. We’ll discuss this evidence of our motion that evening!
Talk about a packed day! The Earth lines up right between Saturn and the Sun in the perfect syzygy for Saturn’s opposition. While the alignment is perfect then, unfortunately, there won’t be many interesting Saturnian satellite activities going on then. But not to miss out on the syzygy fun, our Moon will join the celestial conga-line and partially block the view of the Sun for people in the South Pacific Ocean. Well, it won’t be a perfect line, but it’ll try!
Autumn Begins!
The Sun crosses the celestial equator at 2:06:40 pm for us that day and so it will appear in the constellation of Virgo the maiden, about 2.5° away from her outstretched left hand represented by the star Zavijava. Happy Autumn!
And we will reach Neptune’s line up with the Sun on its opposition night on Sept 23rd. Even though we will be as close as we can be to it then, it will still be 28.9 AU away from us and appear just 2.4 arcseconds across! This means that the light we see from it reflected off of its atmosphere at just under 240 minutes or 4 hours earlier!
