September 2
The Horse's Shoulder
Sun Position
The Sun is in Virgo at about +7° declination. Northern Hemisphere days are still noticeably longer than nights, though the gap is closing quickly; Southern Hemisphere spring is gathering momentum.
Sky Highlight
The Aurigid meteor shower, associated with Comet Kiess, occasionally produces brief outbursts in very early September; radiant lies in Auriga. Activity is typically sparse (fewer than 6 per hour in most years), but outburst years have produced brief storms. Best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere in pre-dawn hours.
Deep Sky Object
M2 (NGC 7089), globular Cluster, Aquarius. Roughly 37,500 light-years distant, M2 is one of the larger and richer globular clusters in the Messier catalog. It is well-placed in the southeast after dark for Northern Hemisphere observers; Southern Hemisphere viewers see it high overhead.
Featured Star
Markab (α Peg) is a blue-white giant of spectral type B9III, about 140 light-years away, fusing hydrogen in a shell and slowly expanding off the main sequence. It anchors the southwest corner of the Great Square and serves as a reliable color contrast to ruddy Scheat nearby.
Around This Date
- September 2, 1962The first university-based radio telescope in the US, at the University of Illinois, began dedicated pulsar and radio-source survey work that contributed to early catalogs of extragalactic radio sources.
- September 2, 2023The Indian Space Research Organisation launched Aditya-L1 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, sending India's first dedicated solar observation mission toward the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.
Markab is just a bright point tonight, but it is a star that has run out of the easiest fuel and is quietly renegotiating its future.