Actual Astronomy - The Observer's Calendar for September

0:00It's the 365 days of astronomy podgang coming in 3 2 1 Observer's calendar for September but I put that in the next one. 2026 on episode 549 of the actual astronomy podcast I'm Chris and journey machine. We are amateur astronomers so love looking up the name of this podcast is for everyone. I enjoy it. I'm going to under the stars. You know who should go under the stars more shame? Who is the board of the RISC? I think they spend too much time in board meetings discussing things that they have no right to do. I'm going to leave it at that. Did you see the lunar eclipse? I sure did. Yeah. It was, you know, like any lunar eclipse kind of a slow

1:01moving but it was it was at a good time for us. Like I forget when it started but you know it kind of was earlier evening and it was a little like transparency wasn't good at least for my location. There was a little bit of cloud or something up there and I felt like it took away from being able to see kind of that reddish hue and certainly I could see like the dark portion of the moon while it was being eclipse and kind of the brighter crown there but I really wasn't able to get color for my location. So but it was neat to see they always are and I'm glad I did it. How about you Chris? I just should say first of all because we are cutting in maybe just a little bit and the reason is is that we're having a really big thunder and lightning storm here right now and it may impact the quality a little but we will persevere. Yeah. For sure. Awesome. Yeah, I was able to see most of it.

2:04Although like I don't think it ever went like totally 100% I think it was like a 95 or 98% eclipse or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't 100% for us. So I think that's why we didn't quite get the color tones and it's interesting what you say about the cloud. So I'm in the south of the city near and then north of the city and it is quite a distance apart by at least a dozen kilometers straight line of said anyway but down by me they were harvesting and it was causing these giant like bog banks almost of grain dust and then some of them were going like up into the air and and they were kind of going sort of up and behind me. So I didn't you know really see it as any sort of cloud in the sky. It was a little bit hazier around it but when you're saying there's cloud and like what are you talking about there's no cloud yet. But you're looking over top of me so what's like what's going on. And I think what you must have been seeing is those big plumes

3:07of grain dust because they were dense because we drove through when we went to the grocery store that evening and it was like you could only see like a hundred meters in front of you. It was like that dense. Yeah, yeah there's definitely something up in the sky like it's kind of hazy it was just weird. Yeah, yeah, I saw the haze but and then yeah we had seen all this this grain dust just as it was starting. And yeah we just watched it from the dark and then for a walk and watch so it was quite nice. I didn't see a little bit of the red but yeah it was really cool to see it was just kind of cool to be out. I don't know that I've ever done that before it was just a beautiful evening despite the little bit of haze and to go for a walk and then to be able to see to be able to see it just sort of taking place for your kind of casually strolling around the neighborhood right. It's quite lovely. Really really good. Any other observing here remember we recorded last

4:08week so I guess we talked with the star of Parian all the weather I had down there so. Yeah, yeah which was unfortunate and then I had a little bit of an illness that kept me from doing much but we'll see we'll see how it goes. We're kind of into some weather right now. It was clear many days this past week but I just didn't have an opportunity to get out. Yeah, same. Yeah I'm working on some stuff at at work and it's like they're tiring so I just at night just kind of laking out a little bit. So let's see coming up here in September. We have the rigids peaking on September first. Now the moon is just going to be getting out of the sky and this one is not like a really big event that takes place. You just get about 10 meters an hour but the only thing I always enjoy at this time of year even though the moon will be up a little bit is

5:09you know if you're observing then you're going to be able to see some of the these meteors just every once in a while streaking by. It's just quite beautiful to see when you're looking at the night time sky. Uh-huh. Uh double star. I think is that lambda del finis? That one. Not sure. Yeah, not not familiar with that one. Uh that is on the list for this month but m27 mish 827 which is a planetary nabila just up in a volpicular. I think is well placed this month. That is a planetary nabila kind of looks like an apple core. Yeah, yeah. It's only one to look at. And then we have Venus coming up in the morning sky. It's going to be at 1.7 degrees so with of spica on September 2nd. We need to see Venus and spica near one another in the night time sky

6:11because spica is sort of a brilliant white at least to my eye. And then she build a see that in a white field low powered telescope. Yeah, for sure. Uh naked eye they might look similar Venus should be quite a bit brighter but uh yeah. They're both kind of white and uh that will be a neat view. Yeah, less than two degrees apart so that's like you know about like you're one of your like your index finger pointed at the night sky apart. I think give or take so it's pretty close together. Yeah. Something something like that. Not much further than that. Um September 3rd. Um the uh. Oh sorry fourth is the last quarter moon. Not the third but the last quarter moon is on September 4th. And on the fifth we have the lunar X visible. Getting a big rain shower rate. So I don't think it's going to come through but there's a lot of lightning and a lot of rain.

7:15Do I still have your shame? Yeah, for sure. Okay, great. Uh on September 6th we have the Alberta Star Party. And Mars 3 degrees set to the moon in the morning sky. Moon is also at Paragy. You know Mars has started to come around now. Don't think it's ready to observe yet but uh as it gets larger and larger certainly have more on that. And NGC 67 81 is well placed. As is B 142 and should have 143 there as well. That's Barnard's E up in constellation of Aquila. What is NGC 6781? That's the planetary nebula. I'm assuming one of the finest NGC's but 11 and a half magnitude there. Um also up in Aquila and uh and sort of in the northern side. Looks uh pretty cool. Like a halo circle giant donut. And uh also also known as the snow globe in that be love.

8:16I wonder why I guess maybe because it has a whole pile of very rich starfield looks like. Yeah, and it's got a circular. So uh yeah, I can understand that. Uh I can't remember. I don't know that I've seen that one yet. So I'm sure must be on that list. I'd love to check. Um my list is that I'm observing all of that HD Curtis's planetary nebula is that he uh. Put into a catalog back in 1918. I think there's 72 or 78 or something like that. Um Barnard 142143 also up in Aquila. These are dark nebulae. And uh this is one of my favorite sets of dark nebulae discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard or EE Barnard. What's cool about B1, 142143 is they form an E in the nighttime sky. And if you're under a really dark sky, even with perpodactylers, uh this one shows up as an E superimposed on a background starfield.

9:17Very cool to look at while we're talking now. Yeah, it's awesome. One of the better dark nebulaes to look at. Yeah, really need that dark sky though. Carbon star W or Ryanus is at its best in the pre-don sky on September 6th as well. September 7th is a Labor Day and around the 6th, 7th, that's when we start to get back into the dark sky slash new moon period chain. I'm pretty excited for this. Yeah, I'll come. Well, just because it's going to be clear, right? Very. Certainly had all the all the bad weather at this point. And I mean, it's really rolling through here now. But yeah, I'm going to take a little bit of time off to do hopefully a lot of serving. You're off or whatever. Welcome to welcome to join us as well. M71 is well placed in 71 is the open cluster up in the constellation of Sagida, the arrow.

10:22It's written the center of it right along that main line of stars and often thought to originally thought to be a popular cluster. I think or could even have that reversed. I can't recall exactly, but that's kind of a neat open cluster to look at as well. Carbon star HK Alira is well placed in the evening sky and well visible on September 7th, meaning that. Renewed and is calculated that this is the best time to track down that carbon star from the carbon star list. Gotta track that one down. I've looked at W Orion, but HK Alira. I don't know. I think I have no let I think about it, but I got to go through them all one year and just just do all these carbon stars and do like a proper set of observations of like those 25 or 35 best ones in the in the nighttime sky. This weather is distracting out there trees are like going in front of me. It looks like a little hurricane out there.

11:23Pretty wild September 9th we have NGC 6905 well placed in carbon star RV. An ostrus well placed in the morning sky. It's one of the better ones I've seen that quite a few times. And so I ankle white starts coming back in in the morning sky at this time of year. So that is also pretty exciting. Yeah, definitely. Okay, a bit of a dark. Sorry. Yeah, blue flash net nebula is NGC 6905. So that's another planet in an able to just between Delphinus and Vaupetula. Not sure which side of that. It actually falls on. I'm just getting like flash after flash after flash of lightning here. Now it's pretty crazy. Okay, so September 10th we have the new moon. And you're in a stationary and intense guy and the old crescent moon is in the east before sunrise.

12:25And M39 and M29 are well placed. These are open clusters way up overhead. I think they're in the constellation of sickness of not mistaken. And then on September 11th we have the veil nebula well placed in the evening sky September 12th. NGC 7000, which is the North American nebula as well placed just off of the bright star den end in the constellation of sickness. And then moving on down we have the NGC 6946 well placed in the nighttime sky. I don't look that one up and see which one that is. Oh, this one. This is one of my favorites. I should have known. But so NGC 6946 at NGC 6939. NGC 6946 is the fireworks galaxy. And it goes right up overhead at this time of year. And it's only like about a degree or so away from an open cluster called NGC 6939.

13:29And the fireworks galaxy is a spiral and it goes right up overhead. And it's really a beautiful spiral galaxy to see even in like an eight inch or larger telescope. And I spend a long time looking at this in the open question, next to it because my friend Graham who I used to observe with in Nova Scotia, he had these two objects. These were his two favorites summer objects. So at some point every summer, but you know towards the end of summer, I take a look and think of him sadly. He passed away about 10 years ago. And we're back after an unexpected 30 minute break. Oh well. It's a bad weather come through there Shane. Yeah, it was really coming down. Yeah, yeah, that was wild. So my internet is line of sight. And you couldn't see anything because it was so heavy. The rain was just like a giant wall of water for about 30 minutes there.

14:31So back to it September 14th, we have Venus a half degree away from the moon. And I'm guessing that is in the evening sky. We also have I see five one four six well placed in the evening sky. Do you know what that one is Shane? No. Pretty sure that that's the cocoon. Yeah. So this one here, is that the end of this big dark lane? Get dark lane is called B139 or something to that effect. And this is a very tough and challenging target to see. Need like a good nebula filter really clear skies need to have it directly overhead. But it's up in Laserta just between sickness and sepis there. It is tough. So I have suspected it like in my five inch, but in the seven inch, I can say that I've seen it.

15:31But it's pretty tough and I think it's difficult because it's just in this rich star field. It's hard to tell what what are stars and what are nebula, but the nebula filter slide works pretty good at assessing it. Right on. Have you seen that one? It's tough. I don't think I have. Carbon star use sign eye is also well placed in the evening sky. Carbon is well visible and that NGC 6819 is one of these great NGC objects to take a look at. This one here is an open cluster sort of just above the cross of sickness there. This one's pretty good. Was looking at this one. I get it a sketch of it last year and I think I chatted about it last, last autumn. It was well placed really great, really great object. September 17th is the first quarter moon and September 18th we have Venus at its greatest illumination extent.

16:39And then the lunar straight wall is visible on the evening of the 19th, which is the lunar. That's the it's like an assignment, isn't it, Shane? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, kind of an escarpment that really becomes visible with the right lighting at the right time of the month and becomes very prominent. Awesome. And then two shadows are also visible on Jupiter on September 19th as well. On the 20th of September, you can try following Capella, a native eye into the daylight sky that week. And that's kind of a neat one to try as well because Capella, it's the brightest star in Oregon. And you'll be able to see that coming up in the morning sky and then as you're as you're watching it, you know, you can sort of watch a clock. Make sure you're careful not to look anywhere towards the sun and see if you can follow that into the daylight sky.

17:40September 22nd we have the octomal equinox right at midnight. So kind of it's just over the line of getting into midnight and Eastern daylight time. Also on that evening, the jeweled handle is visible on the moon. And on September 24th, we have the crater. Billy is a Billy or Bailey. This is a well placed on the moon. I gotta look this up because I don't think there's a crater. Billy on moon or is it Bailey? I think it might be a spelling error. There is a Billy. I'm like flowing away by this. Have you ever heard of the crater Billy? I'm just reading about it now on Wikipedia. But prior to this, I can say no. It was named after French mathematician Jacques de Billy. There's also a crater bird. Well, how come there's not a crater christened Shane?

18:43Well, yeah, agreed. Well, geez, we've learned something new today. I don't want to go out and look at this crater on the moon and have somebody come up and say, Hey, Chris, what are you looking at? And I can say I'm looking at Billy. That might get the police on your doorstep. I think they're on the coming for me. And then we have still visible on the next night too. But on the 25th Neptune is at opposition. Are you a fan of the classical composer holst? A little, yeah, yeah. And you've heard his symphony on the planets? I have. Well, there's only what? There's Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus in a symphony. Did you know that? There's no Neptune.

19:45Get it, Neptune. Oh, you got me there. No, Neptune's in there. Classic, classical humor. There you go. Hard to see much on Neptune. It kind of looks like a moon. Yeah, and even with that, you typically need a little more aperture. I'm not sure if you'd see color in a three inch or not, maybe. That's a little bit tough. I'd say eight inch. September 26th, we got the full moon slash harvest moon. Sure, looks like a harvest moon the other night chain is the combines were harvesting below the full moon. Yeah, no kidding. Even though this time of the year when you can watch it rise and it just looks so large. You have like earth things, you know, to kind of contrast the size of it and or compare the size of it. It's kind of neat. I like it. Two shadows visible on Jupiter on the 26th as well around 11 o'clock p.m.

20:48Just before Eastern time, Mayor Oriental visible, creator Unstein and the carbon star, V, signi is well placed and well varied. I mean, because they're variable stars, these carbon stars need to catch them in the right phase to see them best and where you figure that out. So I think they're kind of at their brightest when she put them in their September 27th. We have some good planet here, viewing opportunities. Let's see what is going on here. The September 30th, we have the asteroid 192, Nassuka on opposition, which is going to be at magnitude 8.4. Just going to look that one up really quick. On asteroid and this asteroid here is a large stony belt asteroid discovered by Austrian astronomer Johann Felizia on February 17th, 1879.

21:51Wow. That's pretty cool. That is cool. Like looking at those asteroids. It's been a while since I've looked at some going to try doing that sometime soon again. So I think we touched on the planets here real quick, but I'm just going to go and take a breeze and see what we are looking at in the evening skies for September for the planets. Looks like just as the sun is setting, we got the moon and Jupiter pretty close together during the, I guess, like the seventh and eighth of the month. And then sorry, that's in the morning sky around five o'clock in the morning on the seventh and eighth. We have those two together and then if I kind of just pop back around to the evening sky. Yeah, it looks like we have Saturn rising. Just about nine o'clock and up to just a little bit before.

22:52So that's cool because by the time we get into September here, she and around sort of midnight hour or one o'clock in the morning, Saturn is going to be relatively high. I don't think it only gets up to about 30 degrees or so during this apparition, but start to get into a bit of a Saturn season soon. So I know you'll be looking forward to that. Yeah, for sure. I love Saturn. Always enjoy looking at it and the rings will be starting to tilt out again. So that'll be nice to see funny for me. It's the rings with Saturn as well. Who knew? Who knew? All right. Let's see anything else for this month. Oh, I know we were giving away those hats that I found. Right. Yeah, R.A.C. hats. Yeah, I get a comment of wool. They're quite warm. I have I have one and it is one of my go to observing hats slash took. But it's not a it's not a go to had. It's a manual hat. Yeah, that's fair.

23:55You have to have to be batteries for this one. Not this one, but you have like battery power clothing. So this really isn't a joke. No, it's a big possible actually. Yeah. All right. So yeah, if you want, what do what do people have to do to get in on the draw? I can't remember. Can we make a little get to the patreon? So just a patreon supporter. We haven't picked a date when we'll draw, but maybe before the first snowfall, we're going to draw on the first snowfall. So that could be any day now. That could be any day now. Well, it's like 30 degrees today again, even though it's raining, but you never know around this place. But typically around mid October, we get our first snowfall on average ish. Yeah, yeah, too far. We're usually think that I think that's what we'll do. So this you know, yeah, we'll do it around the October. I think that's what we'll do. Regardless of whether they're snow or not. Yeah, like is everybody enough time and yeah, we'll do it in October and announce it in one of those episodes.

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