Sounds pretty fancy, right? It simply means three solar system bodies coming together, not in distance, but in perspective. For star watchers it means some pretty sweet night sights! It’s particularly exciting when the moon and planets are involved.
This time a crescent moon, Mars and Saturn will cluster together in a bright and beautiful display around dusk.
Take a peek at the sky tonight and you’ll see a full moon. A full moon is when the moon and the sun are opposite of each other from an earth perspective.
Also called the Moon Cake Festival, China’s harvest festival is an occasion to scoff these sweet treats. The cakes, made of a thin dough shell containing fillings such as jelly, dates and nuts or red bean paste, start appearing everywhere a month before the celebration. If they’re not sick of the snacks by the time of the event, celebrants eat them within view of the real star of the festival: the moon. Held on the September full moon, during the autumn equinox, the tradition is about observing the transition of the seasons. In Japan, one of the other Asian countries where faces turn to the night sky, people even climb onto rooftops to get closer to the moon.
The waning gibbous moon passes just north of Uranus in the constellation Pisces. The moon will occult Uranus as seen from eastern Canada, Greenland, and northern Siberia.
The waning last quarter moon will pass just north of the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus.
Like the Cure Salée, the festival held in the High Atlas town of Imilchil is all about livestock and finding a partner. The most famous example of 600-plus moussems, the event is a homecoming celebration for herders who have spent the summer taking advantage of grazing grounds. The cattle fair adds to the chaos created by souqs (markets) and nomadic campgrounds, which look as striking as the surrounding mountains.
Kitsch, possibly of the unintentional kind, comes out to play at the Cows’ Ball. More than 50 years old, the festival marks a winter homecoming; not of men, but of cattle, which return to the alpine Bohinj valley after a summer spent in green pastures. Daisy and friends are truly the belles of the rural ball, as they are decorated with wreaths and shown off on a parade. Accompanied by herders, cheesemakers, milkmaids and other dairy-farming types, they pass Lake Bohinj and, rising 130m above it, Govin Waterfall. The falls are only active after heavy rain, so hopefully there won’t be any spray to spoil the animals’ get-up.
The planet Mercury will pass close to the bright star Spica in Virgo. This is a particularly good apparition of Mercury for observers in the Southern Hemisphere, less so for northerners.
The sun crosses the celestial equator moving southward. Day and Night are of equal length. The sun rises due east and sets due west everywhere on Earth. This is the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox (Spring) in the Southern Hemisphere.
The moon passes just south of the dwarf planet Ceres in the constellation Libra.