Sun rises at 6:07am.
Sun sets at 6:27pm.
Moon phase: Second Quarter, Gibbous Waxing
Moon rises at 1:31pm on Saturday.
Moon sets at 12:55am on Sunday.
Cassiopeia
September evenings Cassiopeia the Queen rules the night. She can be found in the northeast after sunset. This constellation has the distinctive shape of a W, or M, depending on the time of night you see it. The shape of this constellation makes Cassiopeia’s stars very noticeable. Look for the Queen, starting at nightfall.
Cassiopeia represents an ancient queen of Ethiopia. The entire constellation is sometimes also called Cassiopeia’s Chair, and some old star maps depict the queen sitting on the chair, marked by the five brightest stars of this constellation. These stars are Schedar, Caph, Gamma Cassiopeiae, Ruchbah and Segin.
After midnight, Cassiopeia swings above Polaris, the North Star. Before dawn, she is found in the northwest. But during the evening hours, Queen Cassiopeia lights up the northeast sky.
Binocular search
If you have a dark sky, you can look below Cassiopeia in the northeast on these September evenings for a famous binocular object. This object is called the Double Cluster in Perseus. These are open star clusters, each of which consists of young stars still moving together from the primordial cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the clusters’ stars. These clusters are familiarly known to stargazers as H Persei and Chi Persei.
Stargazers smile when they peer at them through their binoculars, not only because they are beautiful, but also because of their names. They are named from two different alphabets, the Greek and the Roman. Stars have Greek letter names, but most star clusters don’t. Johann Bayer (1572-1625) gave Chi Persei – the cluster on the top – its Greek letter name. Then, it’s said, he ran out of Greek letters. That’s when he used a Roman letter – the letter H – to name the other cluster.
Orion
If you’re an early riser, look to the southeast and spot Orion the Hunter roaming the September predawn sky. Orion has been called the ghost of the summer dawn. Famous for ruling the winter nights, Orion disappears behind the sun around May but comes back from hiding by late July. By early September, Orion is rising in the wee hours and is well up in the southeast an hour before dawn. Orion will soon be up by midnight, then 10:00pm … and by December, you’ll find it rising in early evening.
There’s nothing unusual about Orion’s shift from the predawn to the evening sky. This constellation is simply following the westward shift of all the stars, caused by Earth’s orbit around the sun. As we orbit the sun, our night sky points toward an ever-changing panorama of the Milky Way galaxy. Our orbit causes all the stars to rise approximately four minutes earlier each day.
Canis Major
The three stars of Orion’s Belt point to Sirius in the constellation Canis Major, the “Big Dog.” Sirius is the brightest star in the night-time sky (i.e., not a planet). It’s rising up just before dawn these nights.
Sirius, being in the constellation Canis Major, is often called the Dog Star. If you are up before the sky brightens you really can’t miss it. Just look into the eastern sky. There are no stars or even planets brighter than the star Sirius in the September 2016 morning sky.
Thank you for keeping up with the Night Sky articles. If you are out later on in the week, each star rises about four minutes earlier each day than written here, and the moon rises 50 minutes later. Night Sky is researched and compiled by Lisa Davis-Burnett. Earthsky.org is a key resource for information and images. Questions or comments? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
