Autumn arrives Monday morning at 3:50 a.m., before most of us have awoken. We could be days away from our first morning frost. The best evidence of this season is noticed well before the sun casts its first shadows.

 

Night skies have shifted. Derby fishermen who venture out at night to catch striped bass and bluefish are well aware of just how much autumn’s presence is in the stars overhead. Summer is over.

 

The bright orange star Arcturus that was high and nearly overhead during the summer is now hugging the western horizon an hour after sunset.

 

The Milky Way is now overhead with the constellations Cygnus and Aquila. Cassiopiea, another constellation in that Milky Way belt, is rising in the Northeast at the same time. With moonless skies in the early evening, the Milky Way can’t be ignored. So many billions of stars, the Milky Way hovers over us like a permanent faint cloud. It drifts ever so slowly to the west.