September 8
The Spinning Eagle
Sun Position
The Sun is in Virgo near +3° declination. Days and nights are converging quickly toward equality at all latitudes; Southern Hemisphere observers are enjoying noticeably longer evenings.
Sky Highlight
Altair and the Summer Triangle are still nearly overhead for Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude observers in early evening, though Cygnus and Aquila will begin their slow westward progression through autumn. No major meteor shower peaks today.
Deep Sky Object
NGC 6804, Planetary Nebula, Aquila. A small but bright planetary nebula about 3,800 light-years away, NGC 6804 shows a discernible ring structure in moderate-aperture telescopes. Best placed for Northern Hemisphere observers; accessible from mid-southern latitudes.
Featured Star
Altair (α Aql) is a nearby main-sequence A-type star at spectral class A7V, only about 16.7 light-years away, one of the closest stars visible to the naked eye. It rotates so rapidly (once roughly every 9 hours) that its equatorial diameter is measurably larger than its polar diameter, making it one of the few stars whose oblate shape has been directly imaged.
Around This Date
- September 8, 1966Star Trek premiered on NBC, introducing the concept of the warp drive and an interstellar civilization to a wide public audience.
- September 8, 2004NASA's Genesis spacecraft, carrying solar-wind particle samples, crash-landed in Utah after its parachute failed to deploy; scientists recovered scientifically valuable material from the wreckage.
Altair is close enough to feel almost neighborly, and fast enough in its spin that if you could stand on its equator, you would weigh almost nothing.