Fall 2026 Begins Wednesday at 2:05 AM, Lasts 89 Days
At 2:05 AM on Wednesday the Sun crosses the celestial equator and astronomical fall begins. It lasts 89 days, 20 hours and 45 minutes, until the winter solstice on December 21.
Astronomical fall in the Northern Hemisphere begins during the night between Tuesday, September 22 and Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at exactly 2:05 AM Serbian time. In Coordinated Universal Time, that moment falls on September 23 at 12:05 AM. At that instant, the Sun, as seen from Earth, crosses the celestial equator and moves from the northern to the southern celestial hemisphere, an event astronomers call the autumnal equinox.
Several Serbian media outlets have reported the start of fall under the date of September 22 in recent days, while the portals K1 info and Dan in Belgrade list September 23 at 2:05 AM, noting that the shift technically happens during the night between the two dates. The discrepancy comes from the fact that the same astronomical moment can be described either way: the event begins in the evening of September 22 and continues past midnight, into September 23. The precise moment, according to both sources that state it exactly, is 2:05 AM, in the night that connects the two dates.
The word equinox comes from the Latin aequus, meaning equal, and nox, meaning night, which is where the common belief comes from that day and night are equally long on the equinox. That is approximately true, but not entirely. Sunrise and sunset are measured by the upper edge of the solar disk rather than its center, and Earth’s atmosphere further bends sunlight, so daylight on the equinox itself runs a few minutes longer than 12 hours. The moment when day and night are truly equal, known as the equilux, does not arrive until several days after the official start of fall.
In Belgrade on September 23, the Sun will rise at around 6:26 AM and set at around 6:34 PM, making daylight last a bit more than 12 hours.
This year’s astronomical fall lasts 89 days, 20 hours, and 45 minutes. It ends on December 21, 2026, at 10:50 PM, when the winter solstice arrives and astronomical winter begins. Until then, days will keep growing shorter and nights longer, right up to the shortest day of the year.
One change that falls within this period is not astronomical but administrative. During the night between Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, clocks will be set back an hour, from 3 AM to 2 AM, marking the start of winter time.
In the sky this week, from September 19 to 25, there is no major meteor shower active. For an observer at around 45 degrees north latitude, the number of sporadic meteors, those that cannot be linked to any known shower, is about 2 per hour in the evening and about 10 per hour in the final hour before dawn. The Moon will move from a half phase toward nearly full over the course of the week, so its light will make fainter meteors harder to spot by week’s end.
The exact moment of the equinox should not be confused with the idea that day and night are perfectly equal that Wednesday, or that the event always falls at the same hour and minute every year. Because the calendar year runs 365 days while the astronomical year lasts about 365 and a quarter, the equinox shifts forward by several hours each year and resets during leap years. This year’s time of 2:05 AM applies only to 2026 and does not carry over automatically to future autumns.
