Thursday, September 8
• The nearly First Quarter Moon appears 4° above Saturn this evening. The pair stands about 20° high in the southwest as darkness falls. Although the duo looks best with the naked eye and binoculars, don’t pass on the opportunity to view Saturn through a telescope. The magnitude 0.5 planet measures 16" across while its dramatic ring system spans 37" and tilts 26° to our line of sight. As a bonus, the ringed planet reached quadrature only six days ago, so a line from the Sun to Earth and then to Saturn formed a right angle. Observationally, this means that Saturn’s shadow now extends farthest east of the planet and shows up plainly on the rings, giving the world a striking 3-D appearance.
• Although September is typically a slow month for meteors, the International Meteor Organization has identified a relatively new shower called the Epsilon Perseids. Observers witnessed an unexpected flurry of “shooting stars” radiating from the constellation Perseus in both 2008 and 2013. In other years, the rate topped out at five meteors per hour. In 2016, the shower peaks late this evening, though the best views will come after midnight once the Moon has set and Perseus rides high in the sky.
Friday, September 9
• First Quarter Moon arrives at 7:49 a.m. EDT. Our satellite won’t rise until around 2 p.m. local daylight time, however, so observers in the Americas won’t see it precisely half-lit. As darkness falls tonight, the Moon appears about 55 percent lit and lies nearly 10° above Mars. The Red Planet is worth exploring in detail any night this week. It shines at magnitude –0.2 and shows a 10"-diameter, orange-red disk with several subtle dark markings when viewed through a telescope.
Saturday, September 10
• If you look overhead as darkness falls anytime this week, your eyes will fall on the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp. At magnitude 0.0, Vega is the brightest member of the prominent Summer Triangle asterism. The Triangle’s second-brightest star, magnitude 0.8 Altair in Aquila the Eagle, lies some 35° southeast of Vega. The asterism’s dimmest member, magnitude 1.3 Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, stands about 25° east-northeast of Vega. Deneb trails Vega by about two hours and passes through the zenith at approximately 10:30 p.m. local daylight time.
Sunday, September 11
• Asteroid 2 Pallas reached opposition and peak visibility three weeks ago, but it remains a tempting target in the evening sky. The second-largest object orbiting between Mars and Jupiter glows at magnitude 9.4, bright enough to show up through almost any telescope. You can find it in the dim constellation Equuleus the Little Horse, which lies just west of its big cousin, Pegasus. This evening, the asteroid lies 1° due west of Equuleus’ brightest star, magnitude 3.9 Alpha (a) Equulei. The two objects climb nearly two-thirds of the way to the zenith in the southern sky around 11 p.m. local daylight time