Howdy stargazers and welcome to Star Trails.
I'm Drew and I'll be your guide to the night
sky for the week of August the 31st to September
6th. This is a week when the moon climbs from
half -lit to nearly full, brightening each evening,
and the outer planets take center stage. We'll
also wander through a few oft -ignored constellations
that hold some real treasures for small scopes
and binoculars. Later in the show, we take a
look at time from the watches worn on space missions,
Martian days, and the time -warping science behind
GPS satellites. Whether you're tuning in from
the backyard, the balcony, or just your imagination,
I'm glad you're here. So find a cozy spot, let
your eyes adjust, and let's see what the sky
holds for us this week. We start with our nearest
neighbor. The moon reached first quarter in the
early hours of Sunday morning and now it's waxing
steadily through gibbous all week. By Saturday,
it's a brilliant lantern nearly full with the
official full moon arriving on Sunday the 7th.
So your deep sky hunting windows shrink quickly.
Favor the first half of the week if you want
darker skies after midnight. Farther away, Saturn
is a best bet right now. It's glowing in Pisces
all evening, a bright golden ember. The rings
are still at their thinnest in decades, edge
-on and knife -like, but still a thrill in any
telescope. Saturn reaches opposition later this
month, so it will only get better. Neptune, also
in Pisces, is nearby for late -night telescopic
hunters. and Uranus comes up after midnight in
Taurus. Mars is a low ember in the western twilight,
hard to spot but technically present. Meanwhile,
the mornings belong to Venus and Jupiter. Venus
continues as the dazzling morning star while
Jupiter rises earlier each night and sits near
Gemini's bright twins, Castor and Pollux. A fine
pairing to greet the dawn. If you're out in the
early hours Monday morning, keep an eye on Auriga
for the Aurigad meteor shower. It's usually faint,
but has a history of surprise outbursts. And
in the same part of the sky, Comet Lemmon C2025A6
is sliding near Gemini. It's faint now, more
a telescopic quarry, but worth noting as it brightens
toward October. The brighter moon pushes us towards
star clusters, doubles, and brighter objects
that punch through moonlight. In Delphinus, the
little diamond -shaped dolphin high in the southeast,
you'll find two globular clusters, NGC 6934,
a compact grainy ball, and NGC 7006, a distant
halo globular so far away it appears as a mere
smudge in the eyepiece. Slide westward to Sagitta,
the tiny arrow pointing between Aquila and Volpecula.
Here you'll find M71, a cluster that sits right
on the border between open and globular, granular,
loosely packed, and striking at medium power.
Up in Volpecula, telescopes reveal NGC 6940,
a lush field of faint suns. In Scutum, the wild
duck cluster M11 is one of the sky's finest open
clusters with stars packed like glitter. And
for a challenge, hunt nearby for IC1295, a delicate
planetary nebula that responds beautifully to
an O3 filter. Faint little Equelius, the little
horse near Delphinus, offers a fine double star,
Epsilon Equilii, a classic seeing test. And in
Lacerda, the lizard crawling high overhead later
at night, NGC 7243 sprawls as a pleasing scattered
open cluster. The Milky Way still arcs bright
through the south in early evening, but the moon's
glow will wash it out more and more as the week
goes on. Take advantage of the first few nights
after midnight for darker glimpses, then shift
your focus to planets, clusters, and lunar landscapes
once the moon dominates. Next week brings the
full moon and elsewhere in the world a total
lunar eclipse, but it's not visible here in the
Americas. You may have heard the Latin expression
tempus fugit, which simply means time flies.
We're going to examine that in a very literal
way as we explore watches in space, atomic clocks,
and how time passes on other planets. That's
coming up after the break. Stay with us. Welcome
back! Let's take a break from the sky and talk
about something we can't escape, no matter what
planet we're on. Time. Here on Earth, time feels
fixed. The sun rises, the sun sets, and our clocks
keep a steady rhythm. But once you leave Earth,
or even just start thinking like an interplanetary
explorer, time starts to slip and bend in ways
that are both subtle and profound. Let's start
with Mars. A Martian day, or what scientists
call a Sol, lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35
seconds. Only about 40 minutes longer than an
Earth day, but enough to wreak havoc on human
schedules. Whenever NASA sends a rover, like
Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, or Perseverance,
the mission team shifts to Mars time. Their schedules
drift by 40 minutes each day, so within a couple
of weeks, scientists are working the night shift,
then the day shift, then back again. It's a jet
lag without ever leaving Pasadena. Families of
engineers even reported being pulled into this
Martian rhythm, living in a haze of perpetual
time zone changes. It's known as Martian insomnia.
The engineers at JPL actually commissioned Mars
watches. They look like ordinary chronographs,
but the second hand ticks just a little slower,
stretching the day to match a soul. It's one
of the few times in history people have worn
a watch calibrated to another planet. And that
brings me to a portion of the show I call Watches
in Space! First off, I'm a geek when it comes
to watches in general. Watches worn by astronauts
are a niche interest of mine, one that peaked
a few years ago when I saw in person the Omega
Speedmaster worn by astronaut Charles Duke. I
once had the opportunity to meet shuttle astronaut
Clayton Anderson, and I spent most of that time
talking to him about ham radio on the ISS and,
of course, his Omega X -33 watch. The tradition
of timekeeping in space runs deep. Early in human
space exploration, NASA selected the Omega Speedmaster
Chronograph, a fully mechanical hand -wound watch.
Mechanical watches can't crash or short out in
a vacuum or when exposed to radiation. Additionally,
the Speedmaster has an acrylic crystal, that's
the glass over the dial, which is shatter -resistant,
unlike the sapphire crystals that are often used
in luxury timepieces. In old mission photos,
you can see astronauts wearing the Speedmaster
strapped over the wrist of their spacesuit during
Gemini, EVAs, and on moonwalks. My favorite image
of the Speedmaster was taken on Apollo 11, being
worn by Buzz Aldrin inside the command module.
Once on the lunar surface, Neil Armstrong actually
left his watch in the lunar module as a backup
timer, so it was Aldrin's that became the first
watch on the moon. If you've seen the film Apollo
13, you might remember when a crucial course
correction burn was timed by the stopwatch hand
on the Speedmaster, or Speedy, as it's affectionately
known in watch nerd circles. Omega has embraced
this history and still produces the original
Moonwatch to this day. They include a NASA -style
nylon strap you can attach for real astronaut
authenticity, along with the engraving First
Watch on the Moon on the case back. If you have
7 grand or so burning a hole in your pocket,
it can be yours. Or you can buy the plastic look
-alike Moon Swatch for about $270. This one is
a special edition from Omega's parent company,
The Swatch Group. If you grew up in the 80s,
you might remember the swatch watch, those colorful
plastic timepieces that were all the rage, along
with neon colors on everything, parachute pants,
jelly bracelets, and trapper keepers. The Omega
isn't the only moon watch. Bulova makes a version
inspired by watches worn on the Apollo 15 mission,
although it eschews the mechanical innards for
a super -accurate, high -beat quartz movement.
NASA isn't as picky about watches nowadays. Crews
have worn zens, fortices, and even digital watches.
Today, astronauts often bring their personal
watches like Garmin's and Apple watches. But
the core idea is the same. You need reliable
timekeeping when every maneuver, every engine
burn, and every oxygen check is a lie for death.
And there's just something kind of cool about
knowing that something as everyday and ordinary
as a wristwatch can be used as a tool for space
exploration. But what happens when you need extreme
precision? Right now your phone's navigation
app depends on clocks in space, the atomic clocks
onboard GPS satellites. Each satellite carries
multiple clocks tuned to within billionths of
a second. The system works by measuring how long
it takes signals to reach your device. Even the
tiniest error in timing would put you miles off
course. And here's where relativity sneaks in.
Einstein showed us that time doesn't tick the
same everywhere. If you move very fast, your
clock slows down compared to someone standing
still. That's special relativity. If you climb
higher out of a planet's gravity, your clock
actually ticks faster, and that's general relativity.
GPS satellites are in both situations at once.
They're zipping around Earth at nearly 9 ,000
miles per hour, which makes their clocks run
a little slow. But they're also about 12 ,500
miles above Earth's surface in weaker gravity,
which makes their clocks run a little fast. Add
the two effects together, and the fast wins.
Their clocks tick about 38 microseconds ahead
each day compared to clocks on Earth. That sounds
tiny, but if engineers didn't correct for it,
your location on Google Maps would drift by several
miles in a matter of hours. In other words, without
taking relativity into account, we'd all be lost.
So, whether it's engineers struggling to live
on Martian time, astronauts strapping speed masters
to their sleeves, or atomic clocks whispering
to your smartphone, space reminds us that time
is not universal. It's a local rhythm, tied to
gravity, velocity, and the turning of worlds.
Here on Earth, we march to a 24 -hour beat. On
Mars, the tempo slows by 40 minutes. In orbit,
atomic clocks tick just differently enough to
keep us humble. Time is not some absolute metronome
in the background of the universe. It's pliable
and contextual. And as we push farther into space,
we'll discover just how many ways we can bend
it, stretch it, and live by it. If the stars
spoke to you this week or if a question's been
on your mind, I'd love to hear it. Visit our
website, StarTrails .Show, where you can contact
me and explore past episodes. Be sure to follow
us on Blue Sky and YouTube. Links are in the
show notes. Until we meet again beneath the stars,
clear skies, everyone.