The Sky This Month, September

Roman God on his Chariot, Beginning of the Autumn And More!

ATOTMYR (Sahil)
Sep 2, 2018 · 6 min read

“From Babylonian astronomy to creating whistlers in the laboratory, it has been a journey of myths and legends.”

Ever wondered why humans took it upon themselves to explore the vastness of the cosmos, when they haven’t even explored the whole Earth yet? What made them spend billions of dollars to go explore the space that they knew nothing about? Each group had a different story to tell.

(Image courtesy: Bala Siva Kumar)

The Egyptians looked up and saw the afterlife and linked stars to eternal paradise.

The Hindus looked up and saw the realm of Indra and paid their tributes.

The Greeks looked up and saw the might of the gods and raged a war upon them.

The mathematicians looked up and saw the equations and started scribbling them down.

The writers looked up and saw the vastness and wrote the never-ending legends.

The physicists looked up and saw the patterns and tried to constraint cosmos in laws.

Whatever the story was, the Universe always accommodated to the whim of every human. Each story we created was a journey to discover the truth of our existence. Each human endeavor is in hope to find the answer, creating myths and laws to understand the reason of this all.

“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.”

-Rollo May

To continue the search of that answer, why don’t we start by exploring the beauty and vastness of the night sky, which offers a lot to learn and discover. With so much happening in the cosmos, every night, we have created the list of major events happening in the month of September. Read on to know what lies ahead.

BLUE ICE GIANT UP IN SKY!

Sept 6–7, 2018

The Roman counterpart of Poseidon, the god of the sea and the bringer of quakes, Neptune, is the eighth, and the farthest planet from the earth in our solar system (Since Pluto got demoted from the status of a planet to a dwarf). The blue icy giant is usually invisible in the night sky, due to the large distance between the two planets (4,351,400,000 km of it). But luckily for us, once a year Neptune comes close to the Earth, and is visible in its full glory; this position of the planet is called opposition.

Wondering, what is an opposition? And how come we can see Neptune during it?

Opposition is a special arrangement of a planet, Earth and the Sun. A planet is said to be in opposition when our Earth passes between the planet and the Sun during the course of its orbit, making an angle of 180 degrees. Thus, during opposition the sunlight doesn’t diminish the light that is being reflected by the planets, making them visible in the night sky.

Just imagine three dots in a straight line, center dot being the Earth and other two are being the planet and the Sun, making the distance between the planets the shortest for the time being.

The icy giant reaches the opposition during Sept 6–7, which would be an ideal time to observe the blue caps of Neptune. For this year, the opposition is accompanied by one more event. On Sept 9, the moon turns new, So the opposition will occur with dark nights, making the dim planet much brighter.

But even with all the aid, it can be difficult to find Roman god in the night full of bright stars. To find the planet, we can refer to this image of the sky map. The sky map depicts the constellation Aquarius, the water carrier; which is associated with Neptune by using the astronomical symbol of the icy planet, ♆, a stylized version of the god Neptune’s trident. The planet can be found between Lambda and Phi Aquarii.

THE EQUINOX

Sept 23, 2018

Imagine a world without clocks or calendars. How would you measure time or for that matter, how would you know the concept of a year, a month or a week? Pretty chaotic, right?

But our ancestors had meant to overcome this. And what could be better as a reference than to track the progress of celestial bodies across the night sky. After all, it’s the best example of nature’s synchronized harmony. Now that we know the means to measure time, there should be some periodical events with reference to which we measure time. Solstices and Equinoxes form the basis for those references.

An equinox is the moment when the plane of the Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun, which results in equal illumination of both the north and south hemispheres. It happens twice a year, causing the day and night to be equal in time for people at the same distance from equator in different hemispheres.

The equinoxes are usually associated with myths, stories and symbolisms. In Japanese culture, the equinoxes are symbolic of the transitions of life. It’s a time to visit the graves of one’s ancestors and give their tributes. Equinoxes happen twice a year, and mark the beginnings of spring and autumn.

Sept 23 marks the autumn equinox for this year, which marks the end of summer and the beginning of a new season. Different cultures and religions have different ways of observing the day, from worshiping to reaping of the crops.

THE HARVEST MOON

Sept 25, 2018

Cold winds are going to blow, the leaves are going to fall, trick and treat season is coming, the blessing of Carpo, the bringer of Autumn, will be upon us.

The Moon will turn full on September 25, termed as the Full Corn Moon by the native American tribes, and will bring the autumn with it. Completing the 29 day cycle of lunar phase, the Moon will shine bright among the night sky, making it easier to look at the craters and mountains formed by the impacts of gigantic asteroids in the history of the Moon.

In mythology, the full Moon is usually associated with temporal insomnia (inability to sleep), insanity (hence the terms lunacy and lunatic) and many other myths like werewolves and the Wolverine (Sorry, Marvel and Harry Potter fans, but these are traditional myths).

This month’s full moon is known as the Harvest Moon, because farmers start gathering the crops around this time in lieu of the winter months coming ahead. The bright light of the full moon extended the working time in the fields. The harvest moon usually occurs before the autumn equinox (Sept 23), but like last year, this year too, it occurs after the equinox. It is usually associated with deep orange color, but that is only when it is seen close to the horizon, at the peak, it is in pure white color, as usual. The only thing we can hope for is clear skies, to witness the glory of the Moon.

(Image courtesy: Pixabay)

These were the major celestial events happening in the month of September. Very few, right? Don’t worry, because there are many other cosmic objects that would be visible during the month of September; Jupiter in the evening, Saturn in the night and Venus in the morning will be sights to watch. If you are a fan of patterns and the myths of the night, many constellations would be visible in September, the most prominent ones being Aquarius, Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila.

So get ready with your Cameras and telescopes, to enjoy the show put up by the cosmos for you because…

… The Night is dark and full of stars!

Follow the Nakshatra Medium page for more such content on the skies above!

Nakshatra, NIT Trichy

A student-run university-wide organisation for sparking awareness and fascination in astronomy. Interested contributors can contact us by email.

ATOTMYR (Sahil)

Written by

Novels. Books. Movies. Physics. Repeat.

Nakshatra, NIT Trichy

A student-run university-wide organisation for sparking awareness and fascination in astronomy. Interested contributors can contact us by email.

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