September stargazing events

AccuWeather

As summer comes to an end, Penn State University Professor Chris Palma shared some events and tips on the AccuWeather Early show to keep you looking up towards the stars in September.

Transcript

00:00Summer is winding down, but September is still prime time for stargazing.

00:06Here with what to watch for and when is Chris Palma.

00:09He's professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University,

00:13Eberly College of Science.

00:15Thanks so much for joining us.

00:17Sure. Thanks for having me.

00:19I'm sure your classes are pretty difficult.

00:21All right, Chris, with the cooler evenings,

00:23there's still a lot for stargazers to see in September.

00:27Yeah, absolutely.

00:31I'd love to start out and just tell everybody a little bit about trying to find Saturn on the sky.

00:36Sure, let's do it.

00:38Saturn is by far one of the crown jewels of things to look for in the nighttime sky.

00:45And in particular, I always like to encourage people,

00:48once you're able to spot it and you know you're looking at it,

00:51if you have a friend with a telescope, you have a pair of binoculars,

00:55anything that would let you magnify it a little bit, give it a try.

01:00Saturn is one of the most beautiful objects to look at with even a really, really small telescope.

01:07What's exciting is that coming up in just about a week, September 8th, September 9th,

01:13Saturn's at what's called opposition.

01:16So Saturn will be directly opposite in the sky from the Earth, from the sun.

01:23And what makes opposition really wonderful is that at that point,

01:27Saturn will be closest, brightest, and it will appear largest on the sky.

01:32It'll be as bright as some of the brightest stars in the sky, making it easy to see.

01:37And after midnight, it'll actually be pretty high up in the sky,

01:41so you won't lose it low near the horizon in lights and trees and things like that.

01:49It'll be visible all night.

01:51One interesting thing is the rings of Saturn can look anywhere from nearly face-on to nearly edge-on.

01:58And at opposition this time, the rings are going to actually appear mostly edge-on.

02:03So you won't have a great view of the rings,

02:06but it's absolutely worth it to try and get a pair of binoculars out and zoom in on it.

02:12Well, that's September 8th, and then September 22nd is the equinox.

02:16So what does that signify for us in the Northern Hemisphere?

02:21Yeah, well, you've probably mentioned this before, but just in case you haven't,

02:25equinox just means equal night.

02:28And what a lot of folks think is on the equinox itself,

02:32that means we have exactly 12 hours of daytime and exactly 12 hours of nighttime,

02:38and it's close but not quite.

02:40But it's pretty close to 12 hours of daytime, 12 hours of nighttime.

02:47And what's starting to happen, as I'm sure everybody is aware,

02:52the sun is sinking lower in the sky, right?

02:55So after the September equinox, each day at its highest point,

03:00the sun is going to be a little bit lower, a little bit lower, a little bit lower,

03:04until we get to that dreaded winter solstice in December,

03:08when we get the fewest hours of daylight and the most hours of nighttime.

03:12So for now, late September, we're at that wonderful time

03:16where the temperatures are a little bit cooler, the night's a little bit longer,

03:20but 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of nighttime seem to,

03:24at least me, to be just about perfect.

03:27I love it. Lots of great information.

03:29We've got a pretty good pair of binoculars at my house,

03:31so I may try to spot Saturn there into early September.

03:34Chris Palma, professor of astronomy and astrophysics

03:36at Penn State's University Eberly College of Science.

03:39Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

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