This is the Classical Astronomy Update, an email newsletter especially
for Christian homeschool families (though everyone is welcome!) Please feel free to share this with any interested friends.
The day is thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter. -- Psalm 74:16-17 IN THIS UPDATE Prepper Pro Tip- Big Dipper September Evening Planets Partial Lunar Eclipse Hello Friends, Wow, another summer has come and gone. Hope you all have had a nice one. For my part, I love September. It's a beautiful month in Northeast Ohio. The days are sunny and golden and mild and the nights are cool, "good sleeping weather" as we say. The days are growing short
which means a good season for observing the evening sky. Welcome new subscribers! Back in June I spoke at a local gathering of Charlotte Mason homeschool moms, many of whom subscribed to this newsletter. It was a great gig. They were a great audience who laughed at all my jokes! I'm very grateful to the CM community
which has kept our Signs & Seasons curriculum in print all these years. It's a new
season for our family. Our "baby" has graduated high school and turned 18. So we're all done raising children after 30 years. We are also now officially "ex-homeschoolers," concluding a homeschool odyssey that began way back in the 20th century. I'm hoping to now have more time to spend with Classical Astronomy and finally achieve the goals which the LORD gave me for this work way back in 1990, more than a third of a century ago. Signs & Seasons Update! On that note, I've received several emails lately asking about the status of my writing projects. I'm currently editing the text for a revised, full-color second edition of Signs & Seasons while concurrently revising the text of the S&S sequel, Measuring the Heavens. I need to harmonize the text to ensure that S&S fully supports the sequel so the lessons will be seamless. This series was always intended to be a "graphic novel" format. That did not happen with S&S due to the economics of self-publishing in 2007. But new technology has brought down the cost of color printing so I'm hopeful of finally achieving that. But all the artwork of S&S will need to be recreated fresh, which is a big job. The project also includes revising the S&S Workbook/Field Journal, and creating a new companion workbook for the sequel. It's been hard to tackle this project while working full time with family committments. I can't predict when these books will be ready, given all the delays in the past. But it's bucket list time, now or never! If your family used S&S, I'd be very appreciative of any feedback you can offer, positive or negative, and/or any suggestions for improving the curriculum. I recently got some kind feedback about S&S from a student, Alexandria in Calfornia, who wrote: Overall, Signs and Seasons has been a really enjoyable and enlightening experience. I am not a science person, so this has been very nice because it's not done conventionally. It focuses on the real meaning of science, which is observation. I can handle that. Where I get lost is theories and equations and scientific terms. This
course was a really great find. I also got a wonderful email this summer from Sheri in Idaho who taught S&S as a class in her homeschool co-op. Sheri wrote: We learned a lot and I know that
most of my students really enjoyed gaining a greater understanding of the night skies, seasonal changes, the celestial sphere, and the movement of the Sun and Moon. A few of my students told me that this was their favorite class. The Field Journal activities combined with the backyard compass really helped us see the seasonal change of the rising and setting of the Sun. Your graphics were a huge help with a lot of information packed in. I’m sure those took a long time to
create. Very helpful as I sometimes had a hard time visualizing what was happening but figured it out after spending time studying the graphics very carefully. Many thanks to Sheri and Alexandria for their kind words about S&S. I'd also like to reach out to readerships beyond homeschool circles, including preppers and homesteaders who
would benefit from learning off-grid, non-electronic methods of telling time -- not only the time of day but the day of the month and the month of the year. Given the current state of the world, there may be a dire need for such knowledge in times to come. So if you know any preppers or homesteaders, please share this newsletter and point them to our NEW Classical Astronomy website. This edition includes a a "Prepper Pro Tip," a new feature on practical natural timekeeping. 2024 -- A Year in Cleveland Like No Other We've had a very usual astronomy year here in Cleveland. First it was our total solar eclipse on April 8, the only one here over a 638 year span. Then we saw the big aurora display on May 17 which was utterly unprecedented in my lifetime, the strongest aurora in over a century. We had four tornados touch down right here in Cuyahoga County in August. This
was the strongest such event of my lifetime, as I only recall two minor tornado incidents in 1982 and 1965. Now we hear that Cleveland (and everyone else) may yet get a great performance in 2024 from Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas. These comet stories come and go, but hopes are currently high for this comet, which might be visible to the unaided eye in October. In my lifetime so many comets turned out to be nothingburgers, going back to Comet Kohoutek in 1973. But we did have a great back-to-back show in 1996 and '97 with Comets Hyakutake
and Hale-Bopp. It's been a quarter century so perhaps Tsuchinshan-Atlas will be the "Great Comet" of this generation? I'll try to bang out another newsletter in a month if hopes remain high. Speaking of nothingburgers, it's not surprising that the so-called "Blaze Star" failed to deliver, as reported in the last newsletter. Notice that this story has quietly slipped from the media. If T Coronae Borealis does have another 80 year nova recurrence, it might happen in the winter when this star
is blocked by the Sun. In any event, this was NOT one of the amazing sights seen from Cleveland this year! In other news, the 2025 edition of the Old Farmer's Almanac is out. You can find a copy at your local supermarket or drugstore. This is a great mainstream resource for learning a lot about sky observing and natural timekeeping. OFA is also the longest running publication in America, published annually since 1792. There are a couple of pages of astrology in each issue, but I recommend overlooking these to gain the benefit of this otherwise useful and interesting piece of
Americana. Most months there's not enough material to write one of these newsletters, and then suddenly there's too much! Better dive right in! For more information about topics from Classical Astronomy discussed in this newsletter, please check out a homeschool astronomy curriculum (but popular with adult readers too!) Visit our archive of previous editions of the Classical Astronomy Update newsletters, going back to 2007. ***** Prepper Pro Tip -- The Big Dipper Readers of Signs & Seasons appreciate that the Big Dipper is incredibly useful for finding north. This remarkable "sign in the heavens" is surely evidence of a
loving Creator, since it makes it so amazingly simple to find direction. You simply locate the two outer stars in the "bowl" of the Big Dipper which point unerringly in the direction of Polaris, the North Star. I've often used this simple, age-old, traditional life hack when lost in an unfamiliar city. Just find the Dipper, then north, and suddenly, abruptly, you know your direction of travel and are no longer lost, by the grace of God. In a similarly remarkably fortuitously providential arrangement, this same useful star pattern can also be used to tell time. The width of the bowl of the Big Dipper just so happens to correspond to 1/24 of the circle around which it rotates the North Star each day. So the Dipper moves one bowl width every hour. With practice you can make an "eyeball" judgement of the
rotation of the Big Dipper, and be able to count the passage of one hour. This especially helps if you have a telephone pole or other ground object against which you can measure. Many a time while camping, upon awakening in the night, I've been able to determine that a quarter turn of the Big Dipper represents 6 hours of elapsed time since sunset, which helps estimate the time until sunrise.
Other fractional angles corresponding to various hours are also easily determined with just your eyeballs and some practice. This method is incredibly useful for hunters and other outdoorsmen who spend time outside after dark. This method of measuring time would also useful to preppers in the event of a grid failure when smartphones will be useless. In
the meantime, such natural methods of telling time would be appreciated by homesteaders who seek to revive lost knowledge and traditions. This topic will be quantified and better developed in Measuring the Heavens, the S&S sequel. September Evening Planets I've been scanning the skies all summer looking for the reappearance of the blazing bright planet Venus as the Evening Star in the fading dusk twilight after sunset. Venus has technically been an evening planet following its superior conjunction on June 4, after which it moved from behind the Sun into the eastern sky. But this bright body has been hard to spot since it is
currently at a low angle to the horizon, hugging the sunset and hidden by the treeline. If you have clear skies this week, look for Venus in the evenings after sunset when it is passed by the waxing crescent Moon. The New Moon is on September 2, so a young crescent Moon will be visible by the evenings of Wednesday, September 4 and Thursday,
September 5 when it passes near bright Venus. Be sure look shortly after sunset and keep scanning the skies as night falls, as this pair will be really low to the horizon. A flat, treeless horizon will be ideal, such as over water. The Moon will be a thin fingernail aligned with Venus and this should be a marvelous sight, worth the effort. Keep an eye on the Moon each clear evening after sunset over the next two weeks as it skips across the sky from night to night. As explained in detail in Signs & Seasons, the waxing Moon is a little thicker and a little further from the sunset each evening as it passes through the constellations Scorpius, Sagittarius and Capricornus. By Monday, September 16, the nearly full waxing gibbous Moon will align in a beautiful conjunction with the planet Saturn. You can't miss Saturn as it is the brightest "star" in that part of the sky, a distinct yellowish color. Look for this pair low to the horizon in the southeast as night falls after sunset. Also try to notice this pair underneath the Great Square of Pegasus. If you have a dark rural sky
you might even be able to spot the nearby Circlet asterism in Pisces and the Water Jar asterism in Aquarius. Saturn reached opposition on September 3, when it was opposite the Sun. The concept of opposition is explained in Signs & Seasons and also in several previous editions of this newsletter, like this one and this one. Bottom line, Saturn is closest to Earth at opposition and thus at its brightest in the night sky.
If you have a chance this fall, try to get a look at Saturn through a telescope. Saturn is currently at a place in its orbit where the rings are viewed nearly edge-on and appear very thin, like a line along the equator of the planet. Every 14 or 15 years the Earth crosses the ring plane of Saturn, at which time the rings disappear! This will
happen on March 23, 2025. However, Saturn will be too close to the Sun at this time and lost in the Sun's bright glare, so this event will not be visible. So make a note to try again in 2039 and 2039 during the next ring plane crossings! You'll want to keep an eye on the Full Moon the next night after the conjunction with Saturn, Tuesday, September 17,
since this will be a partial lunar eclipse. This will be the subject of the next topic below. Also plan to go outside in the morning before sunrise during the waning phases of the Moon to see some nice conjunctions with Jupiter and Mars, which are currently morning planets. Both of these planets are passing through the constellation Taurus, and
share the sky with mighty Orion, who has returned to the morning after disappearing for the summer. The waning gibbous Moon passes by Jupiter on the mornings of September 22 and 23, at the start of fall. The Moon becomes a waning crescent before passing Mars on the mornings of September 24 and 25. So take a peek on these mornings. Partial Lunar Eclipse As mentioned above, there will be a partial lunar eclipse on the evening of Tuesday, September 17. As explained in previous newsletters, eclipses always occur in pairs. This is an eclipse season in which a solar eclipse always occurs within two weeks of a lunar eclipse. And
then there are always at least two eclipse seasons in every calendar year, separated by 6 lunar months. However, not all of these eclipses are visible everywhere in the world so you don't get a clear sense of the eclipse seasons unless you follow them closely. You might recall that there was an annular solar eclipse over the USA last year on October 14, 2023. The following eclipse season included a penumbral lunar eclipse on March 25, 2024 followed by the total solar eclipse over the USA of April 8. This current eclipse season includes a partial lunar eclipse on September 17 followed by an annular solar eclipse
on October 2, 2024, which will pass over the Pacific Ocean and cross land over the southern tip of South America. The September 17 lunar eclipse will be partial since the Moon will not fully align with the umbra or full shadow of the Earth. At maximum eclipse, the edge of the Moon will only graze the umbra, resulting in a very brief and shallow partial
phase. As always, the partial phase will be preceded by a penumbral phase, where the Moon passes through the penumbra, or partial shadow of the Earth. During this period, there will be a degree of shading upon the Moon. The penumbral phase is not the same for every eclipse. Sometimes it's a
lot of shading, sometimes not much. But for most lunar eclipses there's not a whole lot to see during the penumbral phase. The penumbral phase begins at 8:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on September 17. This is P1, when the limb of the Moon makes first contact with the penumbra. The show gets better at U1, first contact with the Earth's umbra, at 10:11
PM EDT. The partial phase is best at MID eclipse, 10:44 PM. The partial phase ends at U4, 11:16 PM EDT, followed by an egressing penumbral phase until after midnight, 12:49 AM. This lunar eclipse will be best visible to Americans east of the Mississippi as it will be fairly high in the sky, though later at night. In the Rocky Mountain longitudes the Moon will rise during the penumbral phase following P1 -- not high in the sky but visible earlier in the evening, local time. Over the west coast the
Moon will rise in the midst of the partial phase, between U1 and U4, which would be an intersting sight if viewed coming up over the Pacific Ocean. Here in Cleveland we're very excited for the pennant race with our Cleveland Guardians (nee' the Cleveland Indians). The team has been in first place in the American League Central for most of the season, which started with the Eclipse Over Cleveland back on April 8. Even though this
partial eclipse is rather feeble, it's still an Eclipse Over Cleveland! I'm hopeful that these two eclipses will bookend a championship baseball season here on the usually ice-entrusted shores of Lake Erie. This eclipse is being billed as "The Super Harvest Moon Eclipse" on Accuweather. As longtime readers know, I take a dim view of this "supermoon" nonsense. There's really nothing special to see during a perigean Full Moon, as explained here. But I'm happy if it gets the general public to pay attention to the night sky and go out and take a look. In the next eclipse season after this there will be a total lunar eclipse visible from the USA for all you night owls during the wee hours of the morning of March 14, 2025. We'll hopefully have more to say on that subject as the time approaches. Till next time, God bless and clear skies, - jay The Ryan Family Cleveland, Ohio, USA When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? - Psalm 8:3-4, a Psalm of David
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