Nan at Night by Nancy Hoyt
-Thursday the 27th: The stars of Cygnus, the swan, form the shape of a giant cross. One of the most intriguing stars in Cygnus is just barely visible to the unaided eye, about 70 light-years away. 16 Cygni is a family of at least three stars, one of which has a planet. The moon is half-lit in its first quarter stage.
-Friday the 28th: Albireo is one of the most beautiful double stars in the night sky. It forms the head, or beak, of Cygnus, the swan, which is high overhead this evening. Binoculars or a telescope reveal the individual stars. One looks orange, while the other looks blue.
-Saturday the 29th: Look low in the southwest around two or three hours after sunset for Antares, the bright orange “heart” of the scorpion, which is one of the beacons of summer skies. Then look at about the same height in the southeast for Fomalhaut, one of the beacons of autumn skies. It’s about the same brightness as Antares, but it shines pure white.
-Sunday the 30th: Venus the “morning star,” is well up in the east at first light. The true star Procyon is to the right of Venus, with the twins of Gemini above Venus and a little to its left. The orange planet Mars is well to the upper right of Venus.
-Monday the 31st: At twilight, look straight up for the bright Summer Triangle. Then let your gaze drop about halfway from the triangle to the eastern horizon for the Great Square of Pegasus, which forms the torso of the flying horse. The moon is at apogee, which is its farthest point from Earth this cycle.
-Tuesday the 1st: Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, stands to the lower left of the Moon as night falls this evening. Jupiter looks like a brilliant star, and it shines creamy white.
Thirty years ago, on September 1st, 1979, Pioneer 11 provided us with the first close-up look at Saturn as it flew just 13,000 miles from the planet. Its images were crude by the standards of later missions, but sharper than anything seen from the ground up to that date.
-Wednesday the 2nd: Jupiter, and its large “red spot,” may be found to the moon’s upper right this evening.
-Thursday the 3rd: The Milky Way arcs high overhead tonight. This hazy band of stars is divided by giant clouds of dust that form dark rifts. These zones of darkness conceal some of the biggest, brightest stars in the galaxy.
Fall is around the corner and summer has definitely played itself out. The stars tell the tale as well as the shortened days and yellow school buses once again ruling the road. As September opens the Summer Triangle still tries to catch our eye, Vega is shining nearly straight overhead at nightfall, but it yields that position to dimmer Deneb by month’s end. Cassiopeia the Queen is now high in the northeast – a flattened W tipped toward the left. About equally high in the east is the Great Square of Pegasus, the flying horse. In the western sky, Arcturus, “the spring star,” is sinking low now that spring is long gone and even summer is on the way out. Scorpius the Scorpion is digging his way down under leaving the way clear for the great Orion to rise once again in the months to come. This is a time of transition, the ground is parched the stars are shifting and we all take a deep breath waiting for the weather to come back to us once again.
