Aquarius

After that, we'll move from the moon out into deep space.

For this month's deep sky tour, we're staying in Aquarius.

Aquarius isn't an obvious constellation from suburban skies.

It's large, spread out, and its stars aren't very bright.

But if you take your time with it, Aquarius has a nice mix of objects to enjoy.

We'll move through the constellation in order of right ascension, starting in the western part of Aquarius and working our way east.

So we're looking at objects that set the earliest first.

The first object on our tour is the globular cluster M72.

Planets down here? Venus low in the west after sunset.

Brilliant, unmistakable, and building toward greatest brilliancy on the 18th at magnitude minus 4.8. Saturn is up most of the night in Aquarius, heading for opposition on October 4th, And from the south, it rides far higher than it does for northern observers.

And Jupiter is the pre-dawn showpiece in the east.

Anything to circle in the diary? Tomorrow morning, Sunday the 6th, a thin waning crescent moon sits a few degrees from Mars in the pre-dawn sky.

Venus in the west after sunset, brilliant, unmistakable, low, and building toward greatest brilliancy on the 18th.

Saturn is up most of the night in Aquarius, climbing toward opposition on October 4th.

And from here, it passes far higher overhead than it does for northern observers.

Pre-dawn?

Perfect, yes.

So at this time, the two constellations who happened to be watching Astra and Stella were known as Aquarius, the water-bearer, and Scorpio, the scorpion.

I know those.

You know those two? [laughs] Yeah.

Yeah, I know them.

"Woe," said Aquarius, with his typical laid-back demeanor.

You see, Aquarius is the water-bearer, and he liked to flow like water.

Wherever, wherever the world went, Aquarius went along.

Saturn's graduated to an even better slot.

It's rising close to sunset these days, and staying up for the most of the night, sitting in Aquarius, easily the brightest thing in that part of the sky.

It's building toward opposition on October 4th, and the rings are tilted a photogenic angle at the moment.

So if you've got any kind of telescope, now's a good window to actually look at them properly.

Saturn's actually graduated to a better slot.

It's now rising close to sunset and staying up for the most of the night, sitting in Aquarius at magnitude 0.3, brighter than anything else nearby in that stretch of sky.

Even a modest telescope will show the rings clearly separated from the disc now that they've opened up to about seven and a half degrees, a big improvement on how flat and hard to read they were last year.

It's closing in on opposition on October 4th, so it only gets better from here.