Star Trails will return on October 5

Howdy stargazers, this is Drew with Star Trails.

I wanted to pop into your feed with a quick update. The show has been off the air for the past three weeks—partly due to some technical gremlins, some work-related travel, and the usual slings and arrows of life and career. Taking the entire month of September off wasn’t my plan. 

But don’t worry, the show isn’t gone. We’ll return with a full show on Sunday, October 5th.

In the meantime, we’ve missed a few great sky moments. September gave us a glowing Harvest Moon, the fall equinox as Earth tilted into a new season, a perfect new moon for dark skies, and the anniversary of Neptune’s discovery back in 1846—a world first revealed through mathematics before it was ever seen through a telescope.

But there’s plenty to look forward to as we close out September: We’ll begin the week with a slim waxing crescent Moon, climbing slowly night by night toward first quarter by week’s end.

Meanwhile, Saturn is well into its evening dance, visible early in the night, and Jupiter is rising later in the night toward the pre-dawn hours. If your skies are dark and your timing is right, those two giants may start stealing some of the celestial attention.

Though nothing extreme leaps out in this observation window, the end of September is a quiet buildup before more dramatic scenes arrive later in October. 

When Star Trails returns next week, we’ll dive into some of the unanswered questions of the cosmos: puzzles like the strange tilt of Uranus, the riddle of fast radio bursts, and the lingering questions about the universe’s missing matter. Think of it as a cosmic Unsolved Mysteries special.

Also, thanks to those of you who reached out and wondered what was going on—it means the world to know you’re out there listening. As always, keep looking up, and clear skies everyone.