{"id":623239,"date":"2026-09-13T08:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T08:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T08:48:18","slug":"the-sky-today-on-sunday-september-13-venus-the-moon-and-spica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/623239\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Sunday, September 13: Venus, the Moon, and Spica"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThree celestial objects form a triangle in the evening twilight as Venus and the crescent Moon hang with Virgo\u2019s brightest star.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1008\" height=\"724\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ASY-SM0926_08.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"The sky on September 13, 2026, 30 minutes after sunset, looking west\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tVenus and the crescent Moon sit briefly above the horizon after the Sun sets in mid-September. Spica, although shown, will likely require binoculars to spot this soon after sunset. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/the-sky-this-week\/the-sky-this-week-from-september-11-to-18-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">September 12: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-saturday-september-12-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dione skims Saturn\u2019s pole<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Blazing at magnitude \u20134.8, Venus is nearing its greatest illuminated extent and stands out as an unmissable evening star after sunset. This evening it is joined by a lovely thin crescent Moon as the pair hangs together in Virgo the Maiden, near its bright alpha star, Spica.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Venus should be visible shortly after sunset \u2014 a good thing, as it\u2019s not particularly high, only 8\u00b0 above the western horizon 20 minutes after the Sun disappears. The Moon lies just to its lower right, now nearly three days past New. If you have a particularly clear, flat horizon or an elevated observing site, you may also spot magnitude \u20130.6 Mercury, but it\u2019s only 2\u00b0 high 20 minutes after the Sun sets. It disappears within another 10 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just to the Moon\u2019s upper right is magnitude 1.0 Spica. Some 250 light-years away, this relatively nearby star is nearly 2,000 times as bright as our own Sun. Together with Venus, the three objects form a nice triangle in the west as they set, offering a great astrophoto target \u2014 especially for a wide-view nightscape shot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 6:39 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 7:12 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 9:24 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 8:10 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (10%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Three celestial objects form a triangle in the evening twilight as Venus and the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-623239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}