The longest-running series of benefit concerts in America, Farm Aid grew out of a comment made by the Bob Dylan at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. Suggesting it would be great if the musical community could help America’s struggling family farms as well, Dylan inspired Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp to organise an event. The first Farm Aid took place two months later in Champaign, Illinois and raised $7 million. Two decades later, the concerts have raised more than $30 million and featured great American axe wielders such as Tom Petty, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Grateful Dead (by satellite in 1987) and, of course, the organizers.
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.
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 moon’s penumbral shadow will fall over much of North America as well as extreme eastern Siberia, producing a partial solar eclipse.
If you’re reading from M’Clintock Channel, an arm of the Arctic Ocean which divides Victoria Island from Prince of Wales Island in the Territory of Nunavut, Canada, you’ll see more than 80 percent of the sun’s diameter covered by the moon! The rest of North America will see less of the sun covered, but it’s still worth a trip outside to watch. The Pacific Northwest and the Northern Plains will witness more than 60 percent of the sun’s diameter eclipsed. Across the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi valleys, the maximum eclipse will coincide with sunset, while farther to the east, the moon will only begin its encroachment onto the sun’s disk as it sets.