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For August 2024, the new moon occurs on August 4. On the 6th, the very slender waxing crescent passes 2 degrees north of brilliant but very low Venus in twilight. Yes, Venus is at least back in the evening sky now. The moon is first quarter on August 12th, which is also the morning peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. As the moon sets about midnight, anytime between then and dawn should give you about a meteor a minute coming out of the northeast but visible all over the sky. The radiant in Perseus rises about 10 p.m. The darker the site, the more faint meteors will show up.
>>> Get the August Sky Maps here
The Full Moon, the Green Corn Moon, is on August 19. On the 21st, the moon passes just north of Saturn. The Moon is last quarter on August 26 and passes five degrees north of the close pairing of reddish Mars and much brighter Jupiter in the dawn on August 28.
Mercury and Venus both return to the evening, with Mercury six degrees south of much brighter Venus on the evening of August 7. Mercury will be soon lost in the sun’s glare, but Venus will dominate the western twilight through the rest of 2025. Mars and Jupiter have a close encounter in the dawn on August 14, with Mars passing less than a moon’s diameter north of Jupiter. Check them both out when you are watching the Perseids! Saturn rises just after sunset by August’s end and comes to opposition, rising at sunset on September 8. In a telescope, note how narrow the rings now appear; it is at equinox next March, with the rings invisible, oriented edge on for us on Earth. After that, they appear to reopen, 27 degrees wide by solstice in 2032. Since the rings have a huge surface area, Saturn will appear over twice as bright then as it will this year, with the rings almost gone!
Before we head out to the stars, an update on Comet 2023 A3. It is still easily in the range of small scopes in Leo and sports a nice tail as it closes in on the Sun (see above with my 4” Unistellar Equinox 1 on July 6), but it may be starting to fall apart well before reaching perihelion in September. If so, like many other disappointments (Comet ISON comes to mind), it will dash the dreams of those hoping for a great comet this October. But close observation of it will still add to our understanding of the role these distant dirty snowballs play in making the planet Earth and the critical carbon-based organics.
The Big Dipper rides high in the NW at sunset but falls lower each evening. Good scouts know to take its leading pointers north to Polaris, the famed Pole Star. For us, it sits 30 degrees (our latitude) high in the north, while the rotating earth beneath makes all the other celestial bodies spin around it from east to west.
Taking the arc in the Dipper’s handle, we “arc” SE to bright orange Arcturus, the brightest star of Bootes. Cooler than our yellow Sun, and much poorer in heavy elements, some believe its strange motion reveals it to be an invading star from another smaller galaxy, now colliding with the Milky Way in Sagittarius in the summer sky. Moving almost perpendicular to the plane of our Milky Way, Arcturus was the first star in the sky where its proper motion across the historic sky was noted, by Edmund Halley. It is also our guide to check out T Corona Borealis, the “Blaze Star,” just NE of it. Here the free app “Nocturne” (for iPhones only) is used to capture the sky overhead in early July. This is a two-minute exposure, tripod mounted, looking up with my iPhone 12s.
Predicted to appear just to the east (left) of the “C” in Corona Borealis overhead, for several days this recurrent nova is predicted to become almost as bright as Arcturus, but fade in less than a week. Be checking overhead; it is due to flare up by this September.
The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega dominates the NE sky. Binoculars reveal the small star just to the NE of Vega, epsilon Lyrae, as a nice double. Larger telescopes at 150X reveal each of this pair is another close double, hence its nickname, the “double double,” a fine sight under steady sky conditions.
Below Vega are the two bright stars of the Summer Triangle; Deneb (to the north) and Altair. Deneb is at the top of the Northern Cross, known as Cygnus the Swan to the Romans. It is one of the most luminous stars in our Galaxy, about 50,000 times brighter than our Sun. It sits atop the Cross; at the other end is Albireo, a fine orange and blue double star well resolved at 20X by almost any smaller scope. The eastern wing tip of the Swan takes us to the exquisite “Cygnus Loop,” remains of a supernova expanding outward which is now six moon diameters across in the sky. It takes very dark nights to spot big scopes, but EAAA member James Schultz shows details with his shot with a 3” apochromatic scope in the main image of this article. He notes also: “ED80CF-T and ASI2600MC W/Lextreme filter 20 six minute frames at 100G Processed in sharpcap pro and Pix Insight.”
The Escambia Amateur Astronomers return to Casino Beach for our Pavilion Stargaze Season on the first quarter moon. Meet us south of the famed Beach Ball Water Tower and bring your smartphone to image the Sun (before sunset with our solar scopes), Moon, and constellations. We have free star charts and will show you what’s up. The gazes, if clear skies permit, will be on Fridays and Saturdays for these weekends: August 16-17, September 13-14, and October 11-12.
For deep skies with much less light pollution, on the weekends of the third quarter moon we continue our cooperation with the Florida State Parks at Big Lagoon State Park. Here the emphasis is on learning to observe and photograph the night sky with binoculars or your own telescopes and smartphones or other cameras. While the Pavilion parking is free, normal entry fees to Big Lagoon still apply, and remember to check in the front gate before it closes at sunset! Please join us at the amphitheater on Saturday evenings August 24, September 28, and October 26.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook at “Escambia Amateur Astronomers”, visit our online club website and events calendar at: https://sites.google.com/view/escambiaastronomers, or contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu.