Scorpius

And with no moon in the sky, the core of the Milky Way is still high after dark down here.

Sagittarius and Scorpius overhead in the early evening, the best naked eye view in the sky, and ours for a few more weeks.

There's one more southern thing, and it's subtle.

The zodiacal light, sunlight scattered off dust in the plane of the solar system, looking like a faint pyramid leaning up from the horizon.

From Sydney and similar latitudes, the core of the Milky Way is still high after dark.

Sagittarius and Scorpius up towards the zenith in the early evening, and on a moonless night away from town, it is genuinely startling.

This is the last really good fortnight of it for the year.

Binoculars, no plan, half an hour.

From Sydney and anywhere at similar latitudes, this is the last really good month for the center of the galaxy.

As darkness falls, Scorpius and Sagittarius are high, close to overhead, and the core of the Milky Way runs right through them.

Under a dark sky, away from town, that band is not subtle.

It has texture.

Same dark window, and it's the better half of the year for you in one specific way, the teapot.

Sagittarius sits low in the south after dusk, and the teapot asterism is genuinely easy once you've seen it.

NASA's own guidance for next week, the 14th to the 20th, is to use the returning crescent moon to find Antares in Scorpius first, then step across to the teapot.

Follow the steam from the spout to the thickest part, and you are looking at the center of the Milky Way.

From Sydney, the center of the galaxy is close to overhead as darkness falls.

Scorpius and Sagittarius up high, the Milky Way running the length of the sky, and it's drifting west a little more each night, so this is the run-out of the season.

And new moon falls on the 11th at 27 minutes past 3:00 UTC, which means the week either side of it is properly dark.

If you're going to get out of town for one night this month, make it that week.

So check the circumstance for your observing site.

A few evenings later, on September seventeen, the Moon moves close to Antares, the bright reddish star marking the heart of Scorpius.

The two appear less than a degree apart, an easy and attractive pairing for the unaided eye.

New Moon occurs on September eleven, making the middle of the month a particularly good time to escape city lights and explore the darker sky.

Together, they form the famous Summer Triangle.

From equatorial latitudes, this large stellar triangle stretches prominently across the evening sky and makes a useful starting point for navigating the stars.

Turn toward the south and you'll find Scorpius and Sagittarius.

Antares marks the heart of Scorpius, while the stars of Sagittarius point us toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy.