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.
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.
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.
The shadows of Europa and Callisto cross the face of Jupiter simultaneously, best seen from India and central Asia.