Section updated: September 4th, 2026.
Below is shown what our sky would be like by 9:00 pm on the 4th. The wondrous objects of our Galaxy will be fully in view for us to see them. The night sparkles with its multitude of interesting objects are shown below as the green, pink and blue circles in the image, though they are challenged by the light pollution from the surrounding cities.
In the western horizon, the bright planet Venus will appear less than 3° away from the star Spica, at Virgo the maiden’s left hip. It will be 0.524 au away from us and appear like a crescent Moon, in a waxing crescent phase. But as Venus comes our way in its orbit about the Sun, it appears to be getting thinner, so it really is a waning crescent for it. As we are 1 au away from the Sun, then you should be able to envision it near the right angle of a 44°-46°-90° triangle. I once showed a small boy the planet through a telescope in a similar phase years ago and he declared “It’s a moon!”
Know that it would be an impossible view according to ancient Ptolemy, who wrote the Almagest, had insisted that it orbited on an epicycle around a fixed midpoint between the Earth and the Sun. But Galileo argued that if Venus did so, then all we would ever see of it would be a thin lit section, like a crescent phase, as we would forever look at mostly its night side. So, in order for us to see Venus lit up by over half its surface like we will those nights, both Galileo and Copernicus argued that it must be coming toward us from the far side of the solar system as it orbits the Sun. So, viewing Venus early in the evening will give you a chance to personally eyewitness proof that the Earth is not at the center of the solar system!
If the sky is cooperative, there will also be globular clusters, such as NGC 5897 in Libra, M5 in Serpens Caput, M13 & M92 in Hercules, and M10, 12 & 14 in Ophiuchus, M4 in Scorpio and M22 in Sagittarius. M57, the Ring Nebula, in Lyra near the star Vega. In the constellation of Cygnus the swan, there will be its “blinking planetary nebula” NGC6826 and its apparent, binary star called Alberio, the swan’s beak, which are colored blue and gold, like the Ukrainian flag. And off in the east, we can finally see the planets Neptune and Saturn to appear to us by the evening’s end.
By the 15th, the same image of the sky will appear again, except doing so at 8:30 pm, and that the 4.8 day old waxing crescent Moon will be next to Libra’s star Brachium and while Venus will have progressed to be nearly 10° away from Spica.
If the sky is cooperative, there will also be globular clusters, such as NGC 5897 in Libra, M5 in Serpens Caput, M13 & M92 in Hercules, and M10, 12 & 14 in Ophiuchus, M4 in Scorpio and M22 in Sagittarius. M57, the Ring Nebula, in Lyra near the star Vega. In the constellation of Cygnus the swan, there will be its “blinking planetary nebula” NGC6826 and its apparent, binary star called Alberio, the swan’s beak, which are colored blue and gold, like the Ukrainian flag. And off in the east, we will see the planets Neptune and Saturn appear to us at the end of the evening.
The 23rd will be the first full day of autumn this year. The astronomical definition of the season’s start is when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator heading southwards, as shown in this picture.
The Earth orbits the Sun in the Ecliptic plane. But from our point of view, it appears that the Sun daily moves along the plane in the opposite direction, just like what two dancers spinning around each other would see of their partner. This crossing point also defines the coordinate system we use to locate stars in the sky. This crossing point defines 12 hours right ascension, whereas the vernal equinox in March would define 0 hours RA. Because the Earth’s axis wobbles like a spinning top would do as it slows down, those crossing points precess along the Ecliptic to the west by 1° every 72 years, so towards the upper right here in the picture. That means that a star’s coordinate values have to be defined for the “50 year epoch” that they were measured for and that star atlas books have to be reprinted for the current epoch. But for now, it means that nights get longer and so more time for us to observe the stars!
Neptune’s Opposition to the Sun, September 26th, 1:15 am
At the early morning of September 26th, the Earth will have reached a syzygy line up between the Sun and Neptune, meaning that we will be closer to it than any other time of the year. It will be a “mere” distance of 28.88 au away from us then, so it won’t appear particularly bigger or brighter to us, but it will be the first planet that we well be able to view. So, for us, it heralds their return to our observations for the upcoming autumn months.
