Sky & Telescope - September 2022 - 46

SEPTEMBER 2022 OBSERVING
Sun, Moon & Planets by Gary Seronik
To find out what's
visible in the sky from
your location, go to
skyandtelescope.org.
Plenty of Pairings
The Moon, Mars, and Jupiter steal the show.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5
Venus, the glorious Morning Star, is
finally nearing the end of its current
reign. The brilliant planet first appeared
in the dusk sky in January and will hang
on until mid-October, but it's clearly
losing ground each passing day. At the
start of September, Venus precedes the
Sun by 70 minutes, but that figure drops
to just 30 minutes by month's end.
On the morning of the 5th, Venus
rises alongside Regulus, the brightest
star in the constellation Leo. The two
objects are separated by less than 1°,
but the brightness contrast between
them is extreme. Venus is a beacon of
magnitude -3.9 next to the 1.4-magnitude
glint of Regulus - that's a 132×
difference! Seek out a viewing location
with a relatively unobstructed eastnortheastern
horizon and begin looking
for Regulus shortly after Venus pops up.
These scenes are drawn for near the
middle of North America (latitude 40° north,
longitude 90° west). European observers
should move each Moon symbol a quarter of
the way toward the one for the previous date;
in the Far East, move the Moon halfway.
Dawn, Sept 5
30 minutes before sunrise
10°
Because the pair appear during brightening
twilight, don't be surprised if
you need binoculars to fish Regulus out
from the muck and the glare. Once you
succeed with optics, try with your eyes
alone. You might just spot the star looking
like a little satellite of Venus.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
Mars has been slowly creeping up on
Aldebaran over the past several weeks,
and this morning it's at its closest to
the star, just a little less than 4½° away.
But picking this specific date is really
an exercise in hair splitting. Mars has
been within 4½° of Aldebaran since the
morning of the 5th and will remain so
until the 10th. The star and the planet
are similarly orange-hued and comparably
bright, with Mars shining at magnitude
-0.2 compared with Aldebaran's
+0.9. That's a big enough difference
Dusk, Sept 7 - 8
45 minutes after sunset
that you should be able to tell Mars is
brighter even with a casual glance. And
since you're up before dawn to take in
this conjunction, you can't fail to notice
the other winter-sky luminaries currently
climbing to the meridian. Indeed,
Mars's eastward drift has now carried it
into the Winter Hexagon - a strikingly
arrayed collection of first-magnitude
stars. Shift your gaze westward and
you'll spot Jupiter, which outshines
Mars and all the Hexagon's stars. And
if you wait long enough this morning,
you'll see the pretty scene completed by
Venus, low in the east-northeast.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
So far this month it's the early risers
who are getting all the breaks. And
so it is with this predawn pairing of
Jupiter and the waning gibbous Moon.
As the duo descend toward the westSept
15 - 17
Midnight
Pleiades
AQUARIUS
AURIGA
Saturn
Moon
Sept 7
Moon
Sept 8
LEO
Regulus
Venus
Moon
Sept 17
TAURUS
CAPRICORNUS
Moon
Sept 16
Mars
Aldebaran
Moon
Sept 15
Looking East-Northeast
Looking Southeast
46
SEPTEMBER 2022 * SKY & TELESCOPE
Looking East-Northeast
http://www.skyandtelescope.org
Sky & Telescope - September 2022

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