Astronomy Magazine

The Dumbbell Nebula (M27) in Vulpecula is a great deep-sky target for observers of any skill, including beginners. It appears tapered at the center and wider at the ends, like its namesake. Credit: Jeremy Stanley (Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. September 3: The Moon in Taurus Last Quarter Moon occurs at 3:51 A.M. EDT, leaving our evening sky completely dark and perfect for searching out fainter, deep-sky targets.

A delicate crescent Moon meets up with Mars in the constellation Gemini on September 6, visible in the early-morning hours before sunrise. Jupiter, closer to the horizon in Cancer, gets its chance to tango with our satellite two days later. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine Friday, September 4 Last Quarter Moon occurs at 3:51 A.M. EDT Have you heard of the “demon star,” Algol? This strange sun is actually two stars in a system known as an eclipsing binary.

Early on September 3, the Moon is closing in on the Pleiades star cluster while Uranus shines below. The red crosshairs marks the position of the ice giant. Closer to the horizon, Mars is visible to the naked eye. Credit: Stellarium/USGS/Celestia/Clementine Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. September 2: Venus south of Spica The Moon passes 5° north of Uranus at 7 P.M. EDT.

Luigi La Bella from Melilli, Italy The Lobster Claw Nebula (Sharpless 2-157) is a faint emission nebula straddling the constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus. This complex of gas and dust has been sculpted by the massive stars of the Cassiopeia OB2 association — including the Wolf-Rayet star WR 157 — whose winds carve its ring-shaped northern half (at right). The photographer combined 37.2 hours of exposure in the Hubble palette with a 4.7-inch f/5.6 refractor.

This scanning electron micrograph reveals a closeup look at the spore-bearing head of Aspergillus niger — commonly referred to as black mold. The toughest of the five human-associated microbes tested in a new study, this mold proved most likely to survive for a week or longer in the shadowed terrain near the Moon's poles.

Venus passes due south of Spica on September 2. Compare the view after sunset to that from a few days ago. Credit: Stellarium Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. September 1: Visit globular cluster M30 Venus passes 1.7° due south of Spica at 11 P.M. EDT. Although the pair has set for most by then (around 9 P.M. local daylight time), regardless of your location they are visible in the west shortly after sunset.

Because the Moon’s orbital speed is not constant, the time it rises each evening can vary by up to an hour. This lunar analemma over the pyramids in Cairo, Egypt, illustrates the variation: The Moon moves around the sky over the course of a month, even though the shot was taken at the same time of the lunar day, which is 50 minutes later each subsequent day.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into a clear sky over Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket carried NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to begin a mission investigating dark energy, dark matter, and the population of planets beyond our solar system. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky The journey of a million miles began with a successful launch Sunday morning.

M30 is a compact globular cluster with a crowded core. It lies close to a bright, 5th-magnitude background star. Credit: Dominique Dierick (Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. August 31: Venus and Spica gather close There’s a short dark window early in the evening after sunset and before moonrise to do a little deep-sky observing.

Venus (brighter object) shines next to the bright star Spica as dawn brightens the sky above the Salish Sea. Credit: M.E. Sanseverino (Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) September begins with a lovely sight in the western evening sky: brilliant Venus appears just 2° to the left of Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. The gap between the two widens as the month progresses, with Venus climbing above the blue-white star.