Mary Stewart Adams

In this season we also approach the sacred celebrations of loved ones who have died, but not before we get through the season’s halfway point, popularly known as All Hallowd’s Eve, or Halloween.

The planets, in their orbital rhythms, are like mighty instruments of time, though each with its own mood. And this includes Sun and Moon in relation to the Earth.

The constellation Boötes sets in the West after sunset at this time of year, while Cepheus the king keeps an eye on the constellation Draco in the North, coiling about overhead, host to this week’s meteor shower, the Draconids, which peak overnight Friday to Saturday.

The dragon-slaying Red Crosse Knight is often associated with St. George, patron saint of England. His feast day is celebrated in April every year. So what does this story have to do with the night sky in September?

Dante Alighieri’s epic poem “The Divine Comedy” is regarded as one of the most influential works of art in western civilization. He completed it 700 years ago and then died this week, September 13 or 14th, in 1321, exiled from his beloved Florence.

There’s a discernible pulse, like a heartbeat, sounding out in the star picture this week, culminating Sunday, August 5th, when the Moon meets the star Regulus at dawn, and Venus meets the star Spica at dusk.

In August the better part of the Milky Way is visible, arching over the dome of the night from northeast to southwest, passing over the top of the sky where we find the asterism known as the Summer Triangle.

There’s a True Blue Moon headed our way Sunday, August 22nd.

In old British tradition, the Cross Quarter Day was known as Lammas, for “loaf mass,” a celebration of the first wheat harvest that was brought in from the fields at the halfway point in the Summer. But because of the Earth’s wobble, which causes a precession, the halfway point in this Summer isn’t August 1st, it’s actually August 6th.

The Moon has two orbital rhythms that vary by about two days: The sidereal rhythm is the time takes the Moon to complete one orbit around Earth; and the synodic rhythm, which is the time it takes for the Moon to catch up with the Sun again.