Mother's Bi-monthly Almanac

Enlarge Image Image Gallery

This may be the first generation to set foot on the moon and shoot rocket probes into the reaches of outer space. But, man for man and woman for woman, great granddad and great grandmother-or, for that matter, almost any primitive tribe of almost any past ageknew a lot more about identifying the stars and planets in the night sky than most of us currently do.

And so, with the help of Guy Ottewell (author of Astronomical Calendar 1977, available for $4.95 from the Department of Physics, Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina 29613), MOTHER is going to try to change all that. The foldouts in Issue Nos. 43 through 48 are being printed in the form of an old-time almanac and star chart. Save the series. Practice with it (directions for using the maps appear in MOTHER NO. 43). And, if you're a typical child of our modern TV-dominated society, you should know one heck of a lot more about the heavens by the end of 1977 than you did at the beginning.

SEPTEMBER

4 Mars passes north of Jupiter in the early morning sky.

7 The moon crosses south of Jupiter and Mars before sunrise . . . four days later, it passes below Venus and Saturn.

15 The sun enters Virgo.

21 Mercury is at its best for viewing in the morning because it stands steeply above the sun as the two rise.

22 The fall or autumnal equinox occurs when earth's north and south poles are equidistant from the sun. In our Northern Hemisphere, nights now start to become longer than days and autumn officially begins . . . south of the equator the opposite occurs as spring commences.

23 The sun enters the astrological sign Libra.

27 If conditions are good, you might be able to see a penumbral eclipse of the moon as it passes through the upper edge of the earth's shadow around 4:30 a.m. EDT.

OCTOBER

9 The Draconid meteors have, at times, bet. spectacular. If visible this year, they'll come from the head of Draco throughout the night.

12 A partial eclipse of the sun can be seen in North America (4 p.m. EDT). The further north you live, however, the smaller the "bite" from the sun will be.

20 The Orionid meteors are a very good shower "left over" from Halley's Comet. Numbers in crease beginning at 9 p.m. and peak around 4 a.m. Rate: perhaps 40 per hour.

23 The sun enters the astrological sign Scorpio.

30 The sun enters Libra. In the U.S., change clocks back one hour from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time in appropriate areas of the country.

31 Halloween is the last of the four Cross-Quarter 5 Days, which some people consider the actual , boundaries of the seasons.