August set the bar high for stargazers, with two eclipses and the peak of the Perseids meteor shower. But it’s not time to put away your telescopes, with some lesser-known astronomical events set to arrive across the sky this month.
The Pleiades will appear next to the moon, Venus will reach its brightest point of the year, Neptune will be in its best position for spotting with a telescope, and as an encore to the Perseids, there will also be a smaller meteor shower.
Here are some dates worth marking on your calendar for the month to come.
September begins with an easy opportunity to spot two of the brightest objects in the night sky. Venus will appear near Spica, the most intense star in the constellation Virgo. Both objects will be visible to the naked eye.
The exact timing of Venus’ appearance is September 2 at 00:17 UTC. This means that, depending on the your location, the conjunction could occur in the afternoon or evening of September 1.
Milky way stars photographed with a wide-angle lens.
It should be easy to tell the two celestial objects apart. Venus will shine much more brightly, looking like a white dot that doesn’t twinkle as much as the stars. Spica will appear nearby as a considerably fainter bluish dot. The two will be approximately 1.5 degrees apart.
A handy trick is that 0.5 degrees in the sky is roughly the average diameter of a full moon. Therefore, once you find the brightest point in the sky—which will be Venus—you can find Spica about three moons away.
The moon will be accompanied by one of the most famous star clusters in the sky. On the night of September 3, it will appear approximately 1.1 degrees from the Pleiades—close enough to observe both objects in the same region. The moon will be about 59 percent illuminated, according to Star Walk’s calculations.
The Pleiades, also known as “the Seven Sisters” or M45, is a star cluster located in the constellation Taurus. Six or seven of its members are usually visible to the naked eye under good conditions, although the cluster contains hundreds of young stars. These stars were born at approximately the same time and remain gravitationally bound together.
Astronomical photograph of the Pleiades. From Earth, six or seven stars can usually be seen, but they form a gigantic cluster. The moon will appear next to them on September 3.
The proximity to the waning moon offers a good opportunity for spotting them. To the naked eye, they will appear as a small group of bright points next to the moon, as if they were diamonds. Binoculars will allow you to make out many more. The encounter will happen again on September 30, when the two objects will once more be separated by just one degree.
September also has its own meteor shower. The Epsilon Perseids will peak September 9 and 10, producing up to eight meteors per hour.
A meteor shower, captured in Spain.
The number of meteors is lower than that of the famous Perseids in August. However, this shower has one advantage: Its peak will occur just two days before the new moon, making the sky ideally dark for viewing.
Conditions will be especially favorable from the northern hemisphere, and, as with any meteor shower, it is recommended to find a dark location away from light pollution.
Venus is usually one of the easiest objects to spot in the night sky, but toward the end of September it will shine even brighter. The planet will reach an apparent magnitude of approximately -4.8. By comparison, the full moon has a magnitude of -12.7, and Sirius—considered the brightest star in the sky—barely reaches -1.46.
Look for the planet after sunset, near the western horizon. Viewing conditions will be best from the southern hemisphere.
Unlike the other events on this list, the equinox isn’t something we can go out and observe directly. Instead, it’s an astronomical moment that marks a specific point in Earth’s orbit and, with it, the change of season.
The September equinox will occur on September 23 when the Sun crosses the equator as it moves southward. The event marks the astronomical beginning of fall in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere.
Spotting Neptune is considerably more challenging than spotting other planets. The most distant planet in the solar system (sorry Pluto) is forecasted to reach opposition on September 26. This means that Earth will be approximately between Neptune and the Sun.
This positioning means Neptune will remain visible for much of the night and will be at one of its closest distances to our planet for the year. Therefore, September offers one of the best opportunities in 2026 to try to spot it.
One of the few great photos we have of Neptune.
It’s too faint to be seen with the naked eye. You’ll need a telescope and to know its position among the stars of Pisces. Even then, it will appear as a tiny bluish disk.
September will end with a particularly famous full moon. The full moon closest to the September equinox is traditionally called the Harvest Moon. The term does not describe a distinct physical phenomenon, nor does it mean that the moon will change color, size, or brightness. It’s a traditional name related to the harvests of the northern hemisphere.
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Source: Wired
