Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society
The last few months we reported that all the planetary
action was occurring in the morning sky. That changes
this month. For starters, Mercury is in the early evening
sky, though it is a challenge. Technically, greatest separation from the Sun is August 27 but it’s not the greatest
view of Mercury. The planet’s orbit makes a shallow angle
with the horizon, thus Mercury sets soon after sunset.
Look for it low and nearly due west. It sets at around 9pm
in mid-August, a full hour after sunset, but you’ll be looking into twilight. A super-thin Moon is the right of Mercury on the evening of the 28th
.
Next up is the opposition of Saturn which occurs on the
14th. Saturn is opposite the Sun from our viewpoint,
meaning Saturn and Earth are on the same side of the solar system together. Thus Saturn rises at sunset in the
east-southeast and is in the sky all night. Saturn is also
closest to the Earth and thus looks large through a telescope. The entire month is prime for viewing! I had to
check but Saturn has 83 moons now but only 8 are within
reach of amateur telescopes. It will be a target at our
skywatches for sure!
Jupiter rises next just after 10:30pm CDT on August 1st but
this time decreases to 8:30pm at the end of the month. It
sits in the sky at the Pisces/Cetus border. Did you see the
Juno spacecraft’s photo of a Jovian
thunderstorm? Amazing! The magazines are reporting you can see a double moon shadow on Jupiter after
10:24pm on the 15th. Get those telescopes out of the closet!
Early in the month, Mars rises just
after midnight (about 12:30am) in the
constellation Aries. On the 10th Mars
moves into Taurus. On the morning
of the 19th, the just-after-the-lastquarter-Moon comes between Mars
and the Pleiades star cluster. The
Moon moves on and Mars then
moves further into Taurus, roughly bisecting a line from
Aldebaran and the Pleiades on the 29th. By early September, Mars “becomes” one of the stars in the Hyades star
cluster, marking the face of Taurus. For a while Taurus
will have two red eyes with Aldebaran being the other!
Mars is rising at 11:30pm by month’s end. If you’re up for
a challenge, the planet Uranus is a few degrees from Mars
on August 2nd
.
Venus begins the month as an extra “star” in Gemini.
Venus has been in the morning sky since just after New
Year’s, but that residency is starting to end. Venus is slowly heading back towards the Sun, rising closer to sunrise
time. In mid-August, you’ll need to get up after 4:45am
to catch it. On the 17th, Venus is a foreground object to
the Beehive Cluster, though you’ll need to look really low
in the sky as the twilight will wipe out the cluster. A thin
crescent Moon is above Venus on the morning of the 25th
.
By the end of August, it’s rising at 5:10am.
It’s not a good year for the Perseid Meteor Shower. The
maximum is predicted to occur on the evening of the 12th
into the morning of the 13th. The trouble will be the full
Moon occurring the day before, brightening the sky,
masking the fainter meteors. Normally I’d suggest finding
a dark sky, out of town, to check out the shower, but the
Moon will disrupt those plans. But
maybe look from your backyard as you
never know what might happen. On
the 14th last year, the Earth hit a filament of meteor particles and the rates
increased dramatically. Who knows
what might happen this year?
Lastly, the second largest and brightest asteroid, Vesta, reaches opposition
this month on the 23rd. Vesta should
reach magnitude 6, located just below
Saturn in the east-southeast. It’s not
too far from the Helix Nebula. Good
luck! -DCL
New Moon
August 27
September 25
3rd Quarter