Reentering the evening sky to start a new lunation, the thin Moon hangs upper right of Mercury, then upper right of Venus, low in the west-southwestern twilight. Little Spica switches position with respect to them from the 8th to the 9th. (The Moon is drawn three times its actual apparent size.)
If your western sky is clear following sunset tonight, 9/9/21, be sure to look at brilliant Venus and the young Crescent Moon. It will be a lovely sight.
If you have a clear view of W-SW horizon, you may also be able to see bright Mercury and the star Spica as seen in the star chart.
Binoculars will enhance your view and the Moon may show Earthshine which is the faint but easily visible illumination of the Moon's surface that is not in direct sunlight. It is the result of sunlight reflecting off our planet's oceans and clouds. It is a beautiful sight to see.
Earthshine Moon at Sunset
Credit: Greg Redfern
Try taking a picture of this pretty sky sight using any camera. Smart phones, especially the most recent models with zoom lenses, can get great pic. Even the older models do quite well as you can see.
The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station will open theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on September 10th, 2021 and additional markets on September 17th, 2021.
On digital download September 17th, 2021.
Directed by Clare Lewins
Produced by BAFTA and Emmy-nominee, George Chignell
Featuring: George Abbey, Ken Bowersox, Cady Coleman, Samantha Cristoforetti, Frank Culbertson, Mike Foale, Scott Kelly, Sergei Krikalev, Tim Peake, Bill Shepherd, Sergey Volkov, Koichi Wakata and Peggy Whitson.
SYNOPSIS
While the rest of us - the other 7.9 billion people here on Earth - are going about our daily lives, looking straight ahead, there are another six people living off our planet 250 miles above our heads. These are the men and women of the International Space Station, whose home is a spaceship, an outpost in the cosmos.
Drawing on breathtaking archive and interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, colleagues and family members, THE WONDERFUL: STORIES FROM THE SPACE STATION brings together personal testimonies from the men and women who have been part of this extraordinary project - a remarkable achievement of technology, international collaboration, scientific endeavour and human bravery.
The International Space Station is completely unique - continuously occupied since November 2000, it is a triumph of engineering and cooperation and the largest peacetime international project in history. Assembled by space walkers flying around the earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the length of a football pitch, its solar arrays stretching out for more than an acre, the work of 15 nations over 20 years. But the film is not about the 450 tonnes of silver spaceship orbiting earth - THE WONDERFUL is the story of the men and women who live inside it - their stories played out against the vast, beautiful, bottomless, darkness of the Universe.
For every astronaut who risks their life to go into space there is a chain of people who help them get there. From the family members saying goodbye through protective glass at the launch site, to the engineers, flight directors and dedicated teams at NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA - to the teachers who inspired them, to the pioneers of space exploration, to the pilot who taught a young Peggy Whitson to fly on her farm in Iowa. This is a story of human connection.
THE WONDERFUL remains a constant reminder of mankind's vulnerability but also our ability to reach beyond the unimaginable, to life in space.
In a world of compromise and uncertainty the ISS is a triumph of engineering and cooperation. As an example of what man can achieve when we put aside our differences, it is more relevant now than ever.
The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station is a Dog Star Films production in association with Fisheye Films. Directed by Clare Lewins (I Am Ali, Kareem: Minority of One, The Lost Tapes of Memphis.) and produced by BAFTA and Emmy-nominee George Chignell (Citizen K, Searching for Sugar Man, I Am Ali).
Today, 8/22/21, the Full BLUE Sturgeon Moon occurred at 8:01 am EDT. It will look pretty much like a Full Moon when it rises close to sunset in the southeast sky.
But unlike the modern interpretation of what a Blue Moon is - a second Full Moon in one month - this Full Moon is defined as a Blue Moon for a different reason. It is the the third full Moon in a season that has four, in this case the season is summer.
