September brings dazzling planets, a harvest moon and the official shift to autumn.
It’s been an eventful summer for skygazers, with a full solar eclipse, the Perseids meteor shower and a nearly full lunar eclipse taking center stage. The fall season is coming soon, but there are a few things for skygazers to see this coming month before we’re officially in apple cider and hoodie weather.
September starts on a bit of a whisper but gets going relatively quickly. Here’s what’s coming up for amateur astronomers, from moon meetups and meteor showers to constellations and asterisms.
Taurids and Aurigids are minor meteor showers, so they’ll likely show off one meteor at a time, even during their peak.
September hosts two meteor showers, with one finishing at the beginning of the month, and the other starting at the end of the month.
The Aurigids meteor shower is a minor meteor shower that starts toward the end of August and is fueled by the C/1911 N1 Kiess comet. It lasts about four or five days and peaks on the evening of Sept. 1.
It’s visible by looking at the Auriga constellation, which is the radiant of the Aurigids meteor shower, or the point at which the meteors appear to originate in the sky. It rises from the northeastern horizon shortly after midnight on Sept. 1.
The other meteor shower in September is the Southern Taurids. This is one of the longest meteor showers of the year, lasting exactly two months from Sept. 20 to Nov. 20. It’s fueled by the 2P/Encke comet, which is the same entity that fuels the Northern Taurids. The Northern Taurids start in October.
The Southern Taurids won’t peak until early November, so you’ll have to wait until then to see most of the meteors. Even so, you may see a stray meteor in the late September skies now and then. Both Taurids meteor showers have what are called “swarm years” when they’re much stronger. The next such year is predicted to be 2032.
The meteors appear to originate from the Taurus constellation. It rises from the eastern horizon shortly after 1 a.m. in late September, and is right next to the Ariga constellation.
The moon is going to be pretty close to almost every visible planet in the night sky in September over the span of eight days.
The fun starts early in the morning on Sept. 7, when the moon and Mars are set to streak across the sky together. It starts shortly after 3 a.m. local time when both objects come up over the northeastern horizon. The moon follows Mars across the sky the remainder of the night, so if you can see one, you can quickly find the other.
When the moon rises the next morning on Sept. 8, it’s going to be followed by Jupiter, making both quite easy to see right next to each other.
The most challenging one is Mercury and the moon. Those two meet up right at sunset on Sept. 12, and you’ll only have a few minutes to spot both in the sky before they sink below the horizon.
Finally, the moon meets up with Venus on Sept. 14-15, again right at sunset and shortly after.
