Nights are about to get longer and colder.
The autumnal equinox is on Sept. 22 — a day of equal daylight and darkness that happens twice per year. The fall equinox marks the point when days start to get chillier and shorter than the evenings as the Earth’s northern hemisphere tilts away from the sun.
With more evening hours to stargaze, New Yorkers can feast their eyes on bright planets and two small meteor showers this month while still catching the fading summer celestial objects.
“The nights are getting longer and the temperature is not either brutally hot or brutally cold, and the mosquitoes head to Mexico for the fall,” said Bart Fried, a member of the American Astronomical Society. “I hate freezing my butt off in the middle of winter.”
The planets will be the best sight this month.
On Sept. 21, Saturn will be at opposition, which means the second-largest planet in our solar system will be at its closest distance to the Earth and fully illuminated by the sun. This will make Saturn appear very bright and visible right after sunset. The ringed planet will also appear ringless because its rings are “on-edge” because of the planet’s angle. In October, the rings will come back into view.
“Saturn will be the planet to look for this month,” said Jackie Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. “It’s perfect visibility, so you should look for it after the sun sets, rising in the eastern sky. It will arc through the sky and appear very bright.”
The eighth planet from the sun, Neptune, will also appear in the night sky around the same time as Saturn. Binoculars and telescopes are necessary for seeing the deep blue planet. The windy planet is at opposition on Sept. 23, which puts it as close to Earth as it gets in its orbit around the sun, which also blasts it with light, making it appear brighter than usual.
For earlier risers, Venus, also known as the morning star, glows powerfully just before sunrise in the eastern sky.
By the end of September, the largest planet, Jupiter, will be visible just after midnight this month.
“ The bright planets are making their fall winter comeback,” Fried said. “ In the morning, we have the very brilliant Venus, along with Jupiter, which is bright, but not nearly as bright as Venus in the eastern sky. Neptune should be easy to find near Saturn in the Southwest.”
September begins with two very minor meteor showers. The Aurigid meteor shower will be active from Aug. 28 to Sept. 5, producing its peak rate of around five to 10 meteors per hour on the first day of the month. Shooting stars will appear to be coming from the constellation Auriga with the best visibility after 11 p.m. through the predawn hours.
The Epsilon Perseid meteor shower streaks across the sky from Sept. 5 through 21, and peaks on Sept. 9 with about five meteors per hour. For the best chances at seeing these glowing dirty snowballs hurtling through the night sky, go to a dark spot, away from city lights.
“ They’ll be drowned out by the moon, so if you see one or two of these, you had a good night,” Fried said.
The constellation Pegasus appears this month. Its three bright stars — Markab, Scheat and Algenib — along with Alpheratz, a star from the Andromeda constellation, form a diamond shape that is easily visible after sunset.
“Pegasus rises higher and higher throughout the month,” Faherty said. “An alternate North American view of the constellation is that it’s a baseball diamond and since September marks the end of regular MLB [Major League Baseball] season and the transition to playoffs, lots of people like to look for that one.”
The full moon lands on Sept. 7. It’s also called the corn moon because it coincides with harvesting time. As a result, the first half of the month won’t be ideal for stargazing because of lunar brightness. But the new moon, the darkest lunar phase, is on Sept. 21, which makes the second half of the month darker and better for staring into the infinite universe.
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