September 5, 2024: The crescent moon joins Venus and Spica after nightfall. Venus leads the nightly planet parade that ends with Mercury’s appearance before sunrise.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:21 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:16 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
Evening Crescent Moon, Venus, Spica
The crescent moon joins Venus and Spica in the western sky after nightfall. Our view of the solar system in the western sky after sundown continues to be affected by the low angle the ecliptic, the plane of the solar system makes with the western horizon. Venus is 25° east of the sun, but it is only about 5° above the horizon at 30 minutes after the sun sets.
At this time the crescent moon is 8% illuminated and 7° to Venus’ left. The crescent is about midway from Venus to Spica, 8.5° to the moon’s upper left, too far away to fit in the same binocular field.
The sky is too bright at this hour to see Spica without a binocular’s assist. The Venus-Spica gap is over 15°. Beginning on the 12th they fit into the same binocular field. The Venus-Spica conjunction occurs five nights later. Their separation is 2.4°.
Nightly Planet Parade
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The nightly planet parade begins with Venus in the western sky. Saturn, nearing opposition when Earth is between the Ringed Wonder and the sun, rises in the east-southeast less than 10 minutes after sundown. Venus sets an hour after sunset.
Saturn is in the sky nearly all night. By two hours after sunset, it is about 20° up in the east-southeast. It is in the southern sky after midnight and in the west-southwest during morning twilight.
Bright Jupiter and Mars rise before midnight when Saturn is in the south. An hour before sunrise, they are high in the east-southeast.
Dimmer Uranus and Neptune are in the morning sky as well. Uranus is visible through a binocular in the same field of view with the Pleiades star cluster, while Neptune is a very challenging view in a dim Pisces’ starfield.
Mercury, at mid-twilight that’s about 45 minutes before daybreak, gleams from the eastern sky, about 8° above the horizon, ending the nightly planet parade.
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