Autumn evenings and September moons

After an unseasonably mild September, with temperatures close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit most days, we are starting off October with chillier temperatures. It's odd how that happens--one day it's warm, and then the next day it's not. Yesterday afternoon we ate an early dinner outdoors at a restaurant called SkuteBrygge on the Drammen River (Drammenselva) in the city of Drammen and enjoyed sitting in the warm sunshine, but last night the temperatures dropped and today we woke up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Even though September was a warm month, autumn came just the same, bringing with it dark evenings with crisp clear skies. Perfect for photographing the moon in some of its phases. I've been using my telescope again and experimenting with taking different kinds of photos. These are three of my best 'moon shots'. Enjoy!

A fascination with the night sky

I find myself looking skyward at night a lot this month; the reason is that this is a remarkable month for planet sightings according to the different astronomy websites I’ve come across. Check out the following website for good information about what’s happening in the sky above us during March http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-jupiter-venus-saturn-mercury. It helps that March has been a month of some wonderfully sunny clear days and equally clear crisp nights, so that when I look up I can in fact see the planets, stars and the moon, not hidden by clouds or fog.

I’ve never been very good at identifying the different stellar constellations, except for the Big and Little Dippers, the common names for Ursa Major and Ursa Minor if I understand the information I’ve read correctly. As a child, I remember looking up at the ceiling of Grand Central Station in New York City and being pleasantly surprised by what I saw there—a zodiac mural painted on the green ceiling, which has recently been restored. For more information about it, check out the following site: http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2010/nov/08/stars-shine-grand-central-terminal-again/. My parents tried to explain some of this to us, but my siblings and I were not of an age where we could really understand it. But it was fun to look at.

I’ve been trying to photograph the night sky a lot this month, without much success until tonight. I am posting the photo I was happiest with. You can see the crescent moon, and closest to it on the left is Jupiter; Venus shines brightly above the both of them. Enjoy!