Astrophotography in September 2024: what to shoot in the night sky this coming month

Northern lights over alone tree in night scene, Songkhla, Thailand.

With the equinox on 22 Sept., this is a month when the evenings begin noticeably earlier in the northern hemisphere, and last longer. If that’s good news for astrophotographers, so is the onset of the Northern Lights season. After a flurry of powerful displays in late spring and summer in 2024, the coming months — which coincides with the once-on-11-years ‘solar maximum’ — promise much. Other highlights this month include the reappearance in the post-sunset sky of Venus, a partial lunar eclipse and the chance – if it remains intact – of views of comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which might just reach naked-eye visibility. 

Here’s everything you need to know about astrophotography in September 2024…