Sky Guide September 2016

What to look out, and up, for in September.

Our highlights of this month’s skies with the planet on offer to observers and imagers:

• Mercury & Venus in the late evening or early morning
• Mars & Saturn – with a nice conjunction with the Moon and star Antares
• Neptune & Uranus on offer in Aquarius & Pisces
• The largest asteroid, Vesta, will be passing through the constellation Gemini into Cancer this month and asteroid 2 Pallas can still be found in the constellation Equuelus.

Next up is the meteor showers and, following the magnificent Persieds last month, September has:

• The Alpha Aurigids peaking on 1st September
• The Epsilon Persieds peaking on 9th September

Then we each take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

• Ralph – The Owl Custer in Cassiopeia
• Paul – globular cluster, Messier 2 in Aquarius
• Jeni – The Andromeda Galaxy in the constellation Andromeda

And we finish this sky guide with September’s moon phases.

Happy hunting and clear skies!