The next public viewing night is on the 18th September.

Come along....

Adult admission $10   Students $5

Venus, the brilliant 'evening star' (planet really), appears in the west soon after sunset. You can see it in daylight, if you know where to look. It sets in the southwest in the dark late evening sky. In a telescope it looks like a crescent moon, getting taller and thinner through the month as it comes closer and turns more of its dark side toward us. In September Venus's distance shrinks from 89 million km to 56 million km. Venus is the same size as Earth and is covered with white cloud.

Jupiter is in the eastern sky in the evening. At the beginning of the month it rises before 8 pm; by the end of September it is above the horizon at dusk. It is the second brightest 'star' after Venus and shines with a steady golden light. Binoculars will show the disk of Jupiter. A small telescope easily shows its four big moons and the parallel stripes in Jupiter's clouds. Jupiter is the biggest planet by far, as heavy as all the other planets combined. It is nearly 12 times wider than the earth at the equator and 320 times Earth's mass. It spins once in 10 hours, stretching it at the equator. It is at its closest now, 590 million km from us. Jupiter is north of overhead at midnight and low in the west at dawn.

Canopus, the second brightest star, is near the south skyline at dusk. It swings upward into the southeast sky through the morning hours. Canopus is a truly bright star: 13 000 times the sun's brightness and 300 light years away. On the opposite horizon is Vega, one of the brightest northern stars. It is due north at dusk and sets in the late evening. Arcturus, the brightest northern star, sets in the northwest at dusk. It often twinkles red and green as the air splits up its orange light.

Midway down the southwest sky are 'The Pointers', Beta and Alpha Centauri. They point down to Crux the Southern Cross. Alpha Centauri is the third brightest star. It is also the closest of the naked eye stars, 4.3 light years away. And it is a binary star: two sun-like stars orbiting each other in 80 years. A telescope magnifying 50x will split the pair. Beta Centauri, along with most of the stars in Crux, is a blue-giant star hundreds of light years away.

West of overhead the orange star Antares marks the heart of the Scorpion. The Scorpion's tail hooks towards the zenith like a back-to-front question mark, the 'fish-hook of Maui' in Maori star lore. Antares is a red giant star: 600 light years away and 19 000 times brighter than the sun. Red giants are stars wringing the last of the thermonuclear energy out of their cores. Antares is expected to explode as a supernova in the next few million years. Above Scorpius is 'the teapot' made by the brightest stars of Sagittarius. It is upside down in our southern hemisphere view....read more

The Evening Sky in September 2010