Here are some stages of the sky at the next two weekends, since I have to be away till some time in October. Next Saturday evening:
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
The Moon was New (passing the Sun) at 18:27 Universal Time, which was 1:27 PM by clocks at the picture’s location. It will in the next few evenings be setting, extremely slender, just south of the west point on the horizon. The first evening appearance of this Young Moon signals Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish year. (The day begins in the evening; rather analogously, the year begins with autumn, the evening of the year,)
TPn the mhe morning following, here is the sky region on the other side of the Sun:
At dawn we are on the forward face of Earth, looking ahead in our orbit toward, at present, the feet of Gemini.
And the Saturday after:
There is quite a tangle of visible and imaginary things around 25° above the south point on the horizon – near the “antapex of Earth’s Way,” the backward direction along our orbit, 90° from the Sun.
Saturn is almost at that point, which will reach it (“east quadrature”) on Oct. 7. The Moon was at it – that is, at First Quarter phase – on Oct. 5 at 16:47 UT (11:47 AM at the picture location). Its center was at descending node across the ecliptic at 19 UT; and passed only about a third of a degree south of Saturn at 21 UT. For the southern ends of America and Africa it got exactly in front of Saturn – an occultation.
And we are now nearly 13 days past the autumn equinox.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
I can’t match Rick’s feat of seeing Jupiter before sunset, but I did manage to recover Venus back on Sept 15, and again a few days later. Now I need to try for a “first recovery” of Mars in the morning sky, about a year before its next great opposition in 2020.
Thanks for the update.
I made a sport of trying to see Jupiter with the naked eye while the sun was still up. I made a note of Jupiter’s location just after sunset (15 degrees above the pole of the neighbor’s flood light while standing at a set place in my back yard.)
Lo and behold, I did see Jupiter before sunset last week, and again tonight! I didn’t see the sun’s orb at the same time because it had set behind buildings in the west, but I did see sunshine on the trees to the east, so technically I saw Jupiter in the daylight hours!
I recall doing the same thing with Comet Hale-Bopp, though with a telescope – not naked eye. Observed it during daylight while the sun was still up.