September promises a spectacular lineup of celestial events. The harvest moon will illuminate the night sky with its golden glow, a lunar eclipse will briefly darken the moon as it passes through Earth's shadow, and Saturn will reach opposition, shining brightly as it aligns directly opposite the Sun, offering an ideal view of its iconic rings.
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.
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