The Nutting Moon goes dark today. Tomorrow, the Harvest Moon is new. It is also the autumn equinox. So it’s a full week of festivity. Today, I am putting away the garden so that next week I can celebrate Harvest Home, my Thanksgiving, on the weekend closest to Michaelmas.
So I don’t have much time to chat, however there is this partial solar eclipse that happens with the dark moon today. With 85% of the sun covered, it will not be total, but it will be spectacular. It is not visible from where I live. I think it is pretty much over the Pacific. But peak darkness will happen at the local equivalent of 3:45EDT.
Those of you who can see it are in for a treat. The shadows are all crescent moons.
In a similar dark skies vein… Saturn is at opposition today. Actually 2am EDT this morning, so a bit past, but still at its closest to Earth this year. Also, it is not quite sitting horizontal with our line of sight, so with a telescope you can see the rings again. They’ve been invisible for a while now. You might even be able to see some of Saturn’s moons. Titan should be visible with magnification, just a finger width to the west of Saturn after passing Saturn’s disk yesterday.
For best viewing, Saturn is high in the sky to the south a couple hours around midnight. At magnitude 0.6, Saturn should be the brightest point in that region of the sky. And if you have clear skies (and you probably do this time of year) Neptune is also closing in on opposition on Tuesday. It stands about 2° away from Saturn to the east and is visibly blue-green in a telescope view. You can see both bright Saturn and faint Neptune (mag 7.7) in the same field with binoculars.
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 