August 28, 2018| Categories: Planetarium News, Skywatch Almanac Astronomy, StarGazing
The summer skies, like the weather, are in transition through September. The Scorpion lowers into the southwest through the month, followed by the Teapot in Sagittarius. Still dazzling, though low in the skies, Mars shines a pale rusty color to the lower left of the Teapot, while the fainter Saturn sits above it. Earlier evenings feature the Big Dipper sinking lower into the northwestern skies, while the broad, faint path of the Milky Way arches from northeast to southwest, where the Summer Triangle remains high in the south, while the eastern skies are relatively absent of bright stars. Venus slips into the glare of the setting Sun, while Jupiter lingers low in the southwest.
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The waxing Gibbous Moon slides from Saturn to Mars during the evenings mid-month.
The “Harvest Moon” comes by its name for obvious reasons, though it turns out the circumstances of the Earth’s orbit and tilted axis create a fortuitous phenomenon, allowing the Moon to rise close to the same time near the Full Moon, remaining in the skies all night, offering additional light to continue the harvest in days gone by.