Page 50 - BBC Sky at Night - September 2017 UK

50 SEPTEMBER THE SKY GUIDE

SEPTEMBER HIGHLIGHTS

Your guide to the night sky this month

TUESDAY! WEDNESDAY!
FRIDAY! Neptune reaches Being September,
This morning and
1 the blazingly bright planet 5 visible all night long. It is 6 would list today’s full
some sources
opposition and is
tomorrow morning
in Aquarius, close to
Moon as the Harvest
Venus can be seen passing
just to the south of the Beehive mag. +3.7 Lambda (h) Aquarii. Moon. However, this one
occurs 16 days from the
Cluster, M44 in Cancer. Look out for Mars very low northern hemisphere’s autumn
and close to mag. +1.4 equinox. The full Moon on
The Aurigid meteor shower Regulus (Alpha (_) Leonis) in the 5 October is closer (13 days
reaches its peak zenithal morning sky. from the equinox) making it the
hourly rate of six meteors true Harvest Moon of 2017.
per hour tonight.
SUNDAY! Today mag. TUESDAY! Mercury
10 Regulus (Alpha (_) 12 greatest western
reaches
+0.2 Mercury
is close to mag. +1.4
elongation. It
Leonis). Look for the planet and will appear separated from the
star in the pre-dawn sky. They’ll Sun by almost 18º in the
appear to be separated by just morning sky.
39 arcminutes.

THURSDAY X! SATURDAY X!
Mag. –0.7
The 41%-lit
14 crescent Moon is 16 28 arcminutes to
waning
Mercury is
a little under 6º
the west of mag.
south of open cluster M35 in +1.8 Mars in this morning’s sky.
Gemini in the early hours. The planets continue to close in
on one another throughout the
day, appearing just 3.5 arcminutes
apart at 19:00 BST (18:00 UT)
when they are close to setting.

WEDNESDAY! Mag. FRIDAY X! Jupiter is
20 Venus appears 22 6%-lit waxing
–3.8
close to the
28 arcminutes
crescent Moon in
north of mag. +1.4 Regulus this evening’s sky. The mag. –1.5
(Alpha (_) Leonis) in this morning’s planet is 5º west of the Moon at
sky. This is also the date of 19:45 BST (18:45 UT)
September’s new Moon, making
this a great time to take our Today is the northern hemisphere
deep-sky tour (page 62). autumn equinox.

W TUESDAY!
The
26 planet Saturn can
beautiful
be seen around
3.5º south-southeast of tonight’s
37%-lit waxing crescent Moon. View
PETE LAWRENCE X 8 them at 21:00 BST (20:00 UT).

skyatnightmagazine.com 2017