The Planets:
Mercury:  Visible low in the western sky until mid-September, look for Mercury during the first half hour after sunset.

Venus:  September opens with Venus in the dusky southwestern sky only 1 degree from the bright star, Spica (in the constellation Virgo)!  You can watch this planet brighten all month!  Viewing time, however, narrows from almost two hours at the first of the month to an hour by month's end. 

Mars:  Mars is spinning its way to aphelion, the farthest point in its orbit from us.  The light from Mars is very dim this month, making it difficult to locate during the first two weeks of September.  It rises a mere 30 minutes before the Sun in the eastern sky.  This interval grows to 90 minutes by the end of September.

Saturn:  Rising in the east after 1 AM, Saturn remains visible for the remainder of the night.  Technically, Saturn resides at the very edge of the constellation Orion, right above the tip of his club.  Early risers will get a spectacular view of this planet high in the southern sky.

Jupiter:  The view provided by this giant planet is another good reason to get up in the predawn hours.  Rising in the eastern sky, about 3 hours after Saturn, Jupiter passes within 1 degree of the Beehive Cluster for the first 10 days of the month.  That distance stretches to 5 degrees by month's end.   The Beehive Cluster (in Cancer the Crab) is an open cluster of stars 500 light years from Earth.  The light from this cluster took 500 years just to get to your eyes!   Use your binoculars to view this area of the sky to see why they call it a "beehive"!

AUTUMN IS HERE!
"Equinox" means equal hours of daylight and darkness.  Because of the tilt of the earth in its orbit around the Sun, the Sun will cross the celestial equator on the evening of September 23rd at 11:55 PM CDT, as it heads south for the remainder of this year.  This event is called the "autumnal equinox".

Constellations:  Aquila, Capricornus, Cygnus, Delphinus, Equuleus, Indus, Microscopium, Pavo, Sagitta, Vulpecula

Looking for a Little More?  If this Skyline whets your appetite, try this website:  skymaps.com/downloads.html.  It offers a two page pdf brochure that you can print out for free.  It has a basic skymap and short lists of visual, binocular, and small telescope objects.  It is really good--check it out!