What's Up In The Sky Now?

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This month we enjoy some lovely night sky events. Whether evening or morning, there is something for everyone!

MERCURY - moves into our morning sky & can be seen low in the eastern sky about 45 minutes before sunrise. It reaches its greatest western elongation on the 19th, making this the easiest way to see the little planet at its highest point above the horizon in the morning sky.

VENUS - continues to rise early in the east, at almost 3 AM. Look at the constellation Gemini and you will find Venus. The morning of the 21st before sunrise, we find quite a party with Venus & Jupiter both in Gemini and the Moon & Mercury below in the constellation Cancer. Then on the morning of the 31st enjoy a view of Venus next to M 44, the Beehive Cluster. The Beehive is a lovely open cluster of about 1000 stars and is one of the closest to Earth at about 600 LY. 

EARTH - once again we are in the midst of the dog days of summer, when days are hot & sultry. But rest assured, the days are getting shorter!!

MARS - still in our western evening sky after sunset. The little red planet and our Moon meet up with the bright star Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, on the 24th-25th. The next evening these three companions form a shallow ‘V’ in the evening sky.

JUPITER - stays close to Venus as they rise in the morning skies and can be found in Gemini the Twins. A very beautiful pair to see! Jupiter & Venus are so close together on the morning of August 12th they may look like one object.

SATURN - shines bright this month with a magnitude of 0.8 which makes it easy to see in the low eastern sky. The shadow of its large moon Titan has several transits across the planet this month. The race is on as we watch Saturn chase across the night sky after the Moon as both rise in the east on the evening of August 11th.

URANUS - shines with a magnitude of 5.8 but may brighten to a 0.1 magnitude by mid-month. On the early morning hours of the 16th, Uranus will be below the Moon which sits near the Pleiades by the constellation Taurus the Bull.

NEPTUNE - this planet will rise with Saturn early month. We are always excited to see Neptune, which is the outermost planet in our Solar System. Saturn is about 793 million miles from Earth with Neptune 1.9 billion miles beyond Saturn, which makes seeing this blue planet quite a challenging but fun adventure.

• 01 – 1st quarter
• 09 – FULL at 2:56 A.M. CDT
• 16 –3rd quarter
• 23 – NEW at 1:08 A.M. CDT
• 31 – 1st quarter again

The August moon is known as the Sturgeon Moon for the sturgeon fish species in the Great Lakes and are also called the Green Corn Moon and the Grain Moon.

Even our Moon has some wonderful viewing events this month. On the evening of August 3rd, the Moon will sit just below Antares, a bright star in the constellation Scorpius in the south. The Moon’s grey color will allow Antares to look lovelier than ever. Then on the 5th the Moon moves into the Teapot, an asterism in the constellation Sagittarius.

Fun fact -- ‘Mahina’ is the Hawaiian word for Moon.