00:00Professor Chris Palma, astronomy and astrophysics professor at Penn State's Eberle College of Science.
00:09And of course, you know what I'm going to say, Chris, we are Penn State.
00:12There you go.
00:14All right, Chris, we talked about the moon a little bit.
00:17Two moon questions, so September's full moon, it's called the core moon.
00:20What's the origin of this harvest reference?
00:23And then there's also a lunar eclipse this month.
00:26When will that be visible?
00:28Yeah.
00:28So this is the full moon that's coming up.
00:34And I'll be honest, I call it a full moon.
00:38But these wonderful names come often from all the different cultures that have studied the moon.
00:45And it is corn harvest time.
00:47You can see that just by driving around central PA.
00:50And so a lot of Native American cultures in particular would call the September full moon something related to the corn harvest moon.
00:57And that's where that comes from.
00:59So the only time you can get a lunar eclipse is at full moon.
01:03So we're scheduled for one in just a few days when the moon is full.
01:08But unfortunately, the timing is such that it's not going to be visible in North America.
01:14So it's just going to be our friends in Europe, Asia, Africa that will see it.
01:18And this one, we're left out.
01:20Later this month, and I say this all the time, hey, Saturn is in opposition.
01:26Oh, yeah.
01:26That was a huge thing.
01:27It sounds so cool like I know what I'm talking about.
01:29That was a huge thing.
01:29I have no idea what that means.
01:30Can you explain it?
01:32Yeah.
01:34Right?
01:34I don't know if you feel differently when Saturn is in opposition compared to when Mercury is in retrograde.
01:40But that's where these sayings come from.
01:43Like how do the planets appear on the sky?
01:47But in my case, I really like Saturn being in opposition.
01:51What that means is if you picture the sun, the earth, and Saturn, Saturn is exactly opposite in the sky from the sun.
02:00Which means our easiest time to see the sun is noon.
02:04Now the best time to see the sun, or sorry, Saturn will be opposite that at midnight.
02:09And so that means it'll be bigger, brighter, easier to spot, easier to see.
02:13And I tell everybody, if you have a small telescope, you have binoculars, please try to look at Saturn this month.
02:21It's going to look better than, if you've never seen it, it'll look the best.
02:25But if you've seen it before, it really should look better at opposition.
02:28And you have to put your telescope together first, right, to see it?
02:32It's still in the box.
02:34I'm not good following instructions.
02:36But I've got to, hey, listen, now, my wife said, I've got to put my telescope together.
02:40And Tyler's going to go, why?
02:41Well, because Saturn is in opposition.
02:43You've got to see Saturn.
02:44Do you know what that means?
02:45And I sound smart.
02:46Yes, you tell her.
02:47Okay, got it.
02:47All right, fall starts twice in September, right?
02:49We say once in the calendar and once in the sky.
02:51What's the difference between meteorological fall and astronomical fall?
02:56Yeah, that's a great question.
02:58I'm an astronomer.
03:02I can't get away from thinking like an astronomer.
03:04We pay attention to the seasons based on the sun.
03:08And so you all probably are starting to notice sunsets getting earlier.
03:13About 730 now is around when we have sunset.
03:17And so we're headed towards those winter, really early sunsets.
03:21So to us, astronomical fall begins at the exact moment when we're at roughly half a day is daytime, half a day is nighttime.
03:33So roughly 12 hours of daytime, roughly 12 hours of nighttime.
03:37It's when the sun technically is going below the celestial equator.
03:41So that's astronomical fall.
03:45Meteorological, you all make it easy.
03:48Let's just call fall September 1st.
03:50And so for us, the date varies based on the position of the sun.
03:54But meteorological fall is always September 1st at exactly the same moment.
03:58And it makes it easier to study trends.
04:02You know, what is the climate like in fall?
04:04What is the weather typically like in fall?
04:06So that's the reason we have this difference.
04:08We pay very careful attention to where the sun is.
04:11And Chris, I'm going to put you on the spot here.
04:13Do it.
04:14Do it.
04:14All right, ready?
04:15Yes.
04:15If you had to pick one celestial event that I should get my telescope out on, what would it be?
04:22I'm going to be honest, Saturn at opposition.
04:27You're probably going to think I'm making that up.
04:30But every single person I have ever shown Saturn through a telescope thinks it's a magical thing.
04:38They're blown away at how beautiful it looks.
04:41You will be able to see the rings, even if you have a very small telescope.
04:46You'll be able to see its bright moon Titan.
04:49And people really, I've had people start to cry at the telescope over how beautiful Saturn looks.
04:56And so honestly, Saturn at opposition is probably your best bet.
05:00And a close second would be really studying the moon, looking very closely at the moon and trying to identify individual craters, individual features on the surface.
05:10But in that head-to-head, Saturn wins.
05:13I've got to get my telescope.
05:14You've got to.
05:14You really have no excuse.
05:15Because you know what I could do?
05:16I could make a sign.
05:17Saturn in opposition, come to the Raynaud house.
05:21Yeah, you could charge.
05:22Charge.
05:22Okay.
05:23We've got to go.
05:24Professor Chris Paul, astronomy and astrophysics professor at Penn State's Everly College of Science.
05:28Thank you so much for joining us in AccuOther.
05:30We can feel your passion about astronomy.
05:34And it was amazing.
05:35It was.
05:35It was.
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