September 2023 Skywatching Tips

September 3, 2023

After brightening our evening skies for most of this year, Venus has now switched over to being a morning sky object. Look for the superheated, cloud-covered planet as a bright beacon in the eastern sky before sunrise throughout the month. It will appear fairly high in the sky from the Northern Hemisphere – reaching 30 to 40 degrees above the horizon by month's end, depending on your latitude.

The full moon on September 29th will be the fourth and final supermoon of the year. Supermoons are full moons that occur when the Moon is near the closest point in its orbit around Earth. This month's full moon is also known as the Harvest Moon, being the closest full moon to the September equinox.

The zodiacal light is sunlight reflecting off of an interplanetary dust cloud. This dust fills the inner solar system out to the inner fringes of the main asteroid belt, just past Mars. In September, Northern Hemisphere skywatchers should look for the zodiacal light in the east during the hour or so before before morning twilight begins. Southern Hemisphere observers will want to look to the west in the hour following evening twilight.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Learn more at NASA.

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