For September 2025, the full moon, the Harvest Moon, occurs on September 7. It is a total lunar eclipse, but on the other side of the planet. By the next morning, the Moon passes Saturn. The last quarter moon is on September 14. The waning crescent moon passes north of Jupiter on September 16. A spectacular conjunction between the thin crescent moon and brilliant Venus on the morning of September 19. Just south of Venus is the brightest star in Leo, Regulus, making for a very photogenic trio for anyone with a smartphone about 5 a.m., as you see here. Set your alarm clock!
The New Moon is on September 21, and there is a partial solar eclipse, again not visible locally. The next day, Fall begins at 1:19 p.m. with the Autumnal Equinox, as the name implies, with days and nights equally 12 hours long. On September 23, the very slender waxing crescent moon sits just south of Mars at dusk. The Moon is back to first quarter on September 29.
Mercury is briefly visible at the start of the month in the dawn, just above Regulus in Leo on September 1st, but is lost behind the sun for the rest of the month. After their close approach on August 12, Venus is moving eastward away from Jupiter in September, and closing in on Regulus, for the spectacular triple conjunction above on the 19th. As mentioned above, Mars is low in the west as September begins, and is lost in the Sun’s glare for the next two months. It will be at opposition a month from now. Jupiter is rising about midnight, south of the Gemini, Castor, and Pollux, in the dawn sky. But September is the Saturn Show, with it reaching opposition on September 20, rising in the east at sunset. It had a very rare and spectacular alignment with its large moon Titan, and its shadow at 3 a.m. on August 3, which I was lucky enough to capture in a moment of almost perfect seeing with a 40-year-old Celestron C-8 telescope, 2x barlow lens, and brand-new Neewer LS-T22 digital videocam.
Note how thin the rings appear very thin still, with the Saturnian Equinox only a few months back, with the rings exactly edge on. As Titan orbits in about the same plane as the rings, only when the planet is tilted exactly toward the sun, like for the next few weeks, and again 15 years from now, can such shadow transits of Titan occur. Already 77, glad to see this magic moment.
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit www.skymaps.com.
To the northwest, we find the familiar Big Dipper getting lower each evening. Most know how to use the two pointers at the lower part of the bowl to find Polaris, our Pole Star, sitting about 30 degrees high all night in the northern sky for the Gulf Coast.
From the Dipper’s handle, we “arc” SE to bright orange Arcturus, the brightest star of Spring, and still well up in the western twilight. Just above Bootes, still almost overhead at twilight, is tiny Corona Borealis. We continue to wait for its “Blaze Star”, T C Br, to erupt as a dwarf nova, which most astrophysicists predict would happen by this month. It last occurred in 1946, and became as bright as Polaris for several days, but has frustrated us so far. It will erupt just east of the easternmost star in the crown, epsilon Coronal Borealis, and should be making news everywhere when it blows at last. It seems to build up enough hydrogen to blow off the shell around the white dwarf every 80 years or so, but the white dwarf and its red giant companion are not destroyed and start repeating the mass transfer when things settle down after the blaze.
From Arcturus, we can spike south to Spica, the hot blue star in Virgo. Note that Spica is now low in the SW, and by September’s end, will be lost in the Sun’s glare due to our annual revolution of the Sun making it appear to move one degree per day eastward. To the Greeks, Spica and Virgo were associated with Persephone, the daughter of Ceres, goddess of the harvest. In their version of “Judge Judy”, the beautiful young daughter falls for the gruff, dark god of the underworld, Pluto. He elopes with her, much to the disapproval of mother Ceres, and they marry in his underworld kingdom of Hades…a honeymoon in hell…really, he does love her as well, and the marriage itself works well. But it is the reaction of Ceres that creates alarm. Very despondent over the loss of her young daughter to a fate as bad as death, Ceres abandons the crops, which wither. Soon, famine sets in, and humanity appeals to Jupiter to save us all. Calling all together, Jupiter hears that Ceres wants the marriage annulled, Persephone loves them both, and Pluto wants his mother-in-law to stop meddling. Solomon style, Jupiter decides to split her up, not literally, but in terms of time. In the compromise (aren’t all marriages so?), when you can see Spica rising in the east in March, it means to plant your peas. For the next six months, she visits upstairs with as very happy mama, and the crops will prosper. But now, as Spica heads west (to the kingdom of death, in most ancient legends) for six months of conjugal bliss with Pluto, it is time to get your corn in the crib. This simple story, told in some form for as long as Noah’s flood, was one of the ways our ancestors 7,000 years ago knew the solar calendar and when to plant and harvest. As you watch Spica fade, thank this star for agriculture, and even our own civilization.
To the south, Antares marks the heart of Scorpius. It appears reddish (its Greek name means rival of Ares or Mars to the Romans) because it is half as hot as our yellow Sun; it is bright because it is a bloated red supergiant, big enough to swallow up our solar system all the way out to Saturn’s orbit! Near the tail of the Scorpion are two fine open clusters, faintly visible to the naked eye, and spectacular in binoculars. The clusters lie to the upper left of the bright double star that marks the stinger in the Scorpion’s tail. The brighter, M-7, is also known as Ptolemy’s Cluster, since he included it in his star catalog about 200 AD. M-6 will appear below it in the same wide binocular field.
East of the Scorpion’s tail is the teapot shape of Sagittarius, which marks the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. Looking like a cloud of steam coming out of the teapot’s spout is the fine Lagoon Nebula, M-8, easily visible with the naked eye. The center of the Milky Way lies about 25,000 light-years beyond, but is hidden by gas and dust.
The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega, dominates the NE sky. Binoculars reveal the small star just to the NE of Vega, epsilon Lyrae, as a nice double. Larger telescopes at 150X reveal each of this pair is another close double, hence its nickname, “The Double Double”. This is fine sight under steady seeing conditions over 150X with scopes 4” or larger. Between the two bottom stars, the Ring Nebula, marked “M-57” on the Skymap, is a ring of gas and dust expelled by a dying red giant star while its core collapsed to a white dwarf. A similar fate is expected for our own sun in perhaps five billion more years. The tiny white dwarf, like the one in the T Corona Borealis nova system, has shrunk down to the size of Earth by crushing its electron shells, so while the atomic nuclei are still intact, they are not normal atoms with chemical reactions.
To the northeast of Vega is Deneb, the brightest star of Cygnus the Swan. It was just NW of it that I discovered the brightest nova of my lifetime, Nova Cygni, on August 27, 1975. Here, a shell of hydrogen around a white dwarf exploded suddenly, becoming a record (for a nova, at least) 20 million times brighter in a matter of hours. It went from not visible in any telescope to the sixth brightest star in the summer sky in less than a day, and I was looking at the right place and time to catch it still on the rise. But the total amount of expelled gases was much less than in the Ring Nebula, and it faded below naked eye visibility in only two weeks. Fun while it lasted! Typically, several nova outbursts are found every year in our Galaxy, and they do often recur, for neither star in the close binary system was destroyed, and the mass transfer can resume soon.
At the other end of the “northern Cross” that makes up the body of Cygnus is Albireo, the finest and most colorful double star in the sky. Its orange and blue members (I call them the “Gator Stars”) are well resolved at 20X by any small scope.
To the south of Cygnus is Altair, the brightest star of Aquila the Eagle, the third member of the three bright stars that make the Summer Triangle so obvious in the NE these clear September evenings.
To the east, the Square of Pegasus rises. The long axis of the square points to the SE to Saturn in Aquarius. Jupiter will join the evening planet parade in December in Gemini. The fall constellations are returning to the eastern sky earlier each evening now.
Even much smaller scopes than James Schultz's 8” can capture the new supernova — the most luminous supernova of the 21st century? I believe the peak was magnitude +11.8, on July 31st, and here is my own closeup, very short exposure with just my See Star S50 (pictured above), capturing the SN much bluer and slightly brighter than the orange core of population II aging giants in this galaxy’s core. My last shot of it, on August 8th, shows it cooler and more yellow white than in the peak below. It is also fading fast. If the galaxy, as Wiki notes, is indeed 44 million light-years away, at its peak, it shines with the brilliance of ten billion suns. But the total detonation of an overloaded white dwarf (swelled by transfer from a neighboring giant star to over the Chandrasekhar Limit of 1.4 solar masses) will NOT have a collapsed magnetar in its core, like the one in Type II supernovae like the Crab Nebula. As its stellar ashes, rich in metals like Iron, Nickel, and Cobalt, undergo radioactive decay in just the next few weeks, it should fade to invisibility in just a few months. By all means, join us at our stargazes in September, and catch it while you can! It will be difficult with most of our scopes by the end of the month.
Here is the usual light curve for a Type Ia supernova like this one. It should fade fast.
The Escambia Amateur Astronomers return to Casino Beach for our Pavilion Stargaze Season on the first quarter moon. Meet us south of the famed Beach Ball Water Tower and bring your smartphone to image the Sun (before sunset with our solar scopes), Moon, and constellations. We have free star charts and will show you what’s up. The final beach gaze, if clear skies permit, will be on the weekend of September 26-27.
For deep skies with much less light pollution, on the weekends of the third quarter moon we continue our cooperation with the Florida State Parks at Big Lagoon State Park. Here, the emphasis is on learning to observe and photograph the night sky with binoculars or your own telescopes and smartphones, or other cameras. While the Pavilion parking is free, normal entry fees ($6) to Big Lagoon still apply, and remember to check in at the front gate before it closes at sunset! Please join us at the amphitheater on Saturday evenings, September 13, and October 11.
Pensacola State’s Science and Space Theatre has regular planetarium shows. Tickets are $6 for adults and $5 for students. They are back thanks to the support of the Merry Edenton-Wooten Endowed Chair in Space Sciences; Merry’s planetarium artwork for NASA is on display in the Foyer, named in her honor. Please order them in advance; they are available via Purple Pass PSC Planetarium.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook, visit our club website. Contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. Be aware of “pop-up” gazes when clear skies permit at the Airport Approach on Langley for special help sessions, ISS passes, etc, as announced on the EAAA’s Facebook pages.
