An almost full moon glides close to Saturn this week, forming a pleasant conjunction in an otherwise unremarkable patch of the sky.
The chart shows the view looking east-southeast from London at 22:00 on 8 September 2025. The moon’s visible hemisphere is just over 98% illuminated, and at 16 days old it is just past full and so is beginning its waning gibbous phase.
Saturn will be a yellowish spot of light compared with the moon’s silvery glare. The pair will be visible soon after sunset, appearing low on the eastern horizon. As the sky darkens and the night gathers, they will rise higher into the sky and the stars around them will appear, one by one.
By mid-evening the pair can be used as a signpost to begin tracing the zodiacal constellation of Pisces, the fishes. This is a surprisingly large constellation but rendered inconspicuous by the fact that it is made up of fainter stars.
According to Greek myth, the fish are associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and her son Eros. The pair turned themselves into fish so that they could swim Earth’s oceans, spreading love and compassion in their wake.
The conjunction is also easily visible from the southern hemisphere.
