Fall officially arrives on Sunday at 4:44 p.m. Daylight is becoming a precious commodity.

Already maple trees are changing their colors and Virginia creeper is turning brilliant red.

Stars overhead have changed significantly from summer. The Milky Way, a long ribbon of billions of stars, now rises in the northeast, moving high across our western sky and setting in the southwest.

The two evening planets, Venus and Saturn, are close together in the western sky. The planets are visible about an hour after sunset; they set together a short time later. This week the much fainter Saturn appeared above the brilliant Venus.

In the nights ahead Saturn will appear lower and lower in the western sky while Venus remains almost as a permanent fixture. But this will change.

The second brightest planet is in our morning sky: Jupiter. In the zodiacal constellation Gemini, Jupiter appears low in the eastern sky after midnight and rises slowly through the morning. Following Jupiter is the red planet Mars. Mars rises at about 3 a.m.