Backyard Astronomer - Delta College Public Radio

The Harvest Moon takes place on September 10 this year. It's the Full Moon closest to the Autumn Equinox and is popular with farmers because they can continue harvesting by the light of the moon after sunset.

If you look low in the southeast sky after dark, you’ll see a moderately bright star that doesn’t twinkle as much as the other stars. This is the famous ringed planet Saturn, and it recently made its closest approach to Earth.

Under a clear sky with no moon or light pollution, you should see it as a faint band of light that stretches overhead from roughly north to south. This band represents the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, a huge spiral of some 200 billion stars.

As the moon advances past full and moves further into the eastern sky, we’ll have a chance to see it greet the planet Mars on the morning of August 19.

Each year in late October, our planet crosses the orbit of Halley’s Comet, sweeping up millions of little bits of ice and dust to create the Orionid Meteor Shower.