The big deal in the sky for the month of August is the Perseid meteor shower! And it’s maximum typically occurs the night of August 11th every year. Meteors are best seen after midnight, but for Blue Spruce Campers on August 11th, we saw an occasional bright meteor that night! There have been a few meteors at camp this year.
In The Evening Sky:
All month, the “Summer Triangle” of three bright stars will be clearly visible in the southern sky. Vega is near “the top” (the zenith) of the sky and is the most brilliant. Off to the left will be the bright star Deneb and the most southern is the bright star Altair. You can find all three on the below star chart.
Anchored by bright Vega, we have the constellation Lyra, shaped like a rhombus. Can you find Lyra? See the below photo and star chart. Between the two stars in the bottom of Lyra’s rhombus is the “Ring Nebula.” Hopefully, we’ll be able to see the dim ring nebula with telescopes at Blue Spruce, but the bright moon may prevent that.
One of the fun “binary stars” to see in the sky is Albireo, in the constellation of Cygnus. Albireo looks like a very normal, not very bright star with a naked eye. But through a telescope, you can see that Albireo is really two stars, one that is yellow and the other one is blue!
In The Morning Sky:
Throughout the month, Venus is still the brightest non-moon object in the sky, serving as the “morning star.”
On August 15th, the waning (decreasing in phase size) moon was very close to brilliant Jupiter in the morning sky.
Star Chart for August, from Orion Telescopes website:
July will be a very good month for several astronomy observations. There will be swath of planets visible in the early morning sky, several pretty moon-planet conjunctions, meteors, and bright star clusters. So let’s get started:
In The Early Pre-dawn Morning:
The Planet Show that was so visible in late June is still in the sky, although the compactness of the group is a bit more spread out. Nonetheless, the following schematic still applies, stretching several planets out between Saturn and Mercury:
On July 17th, a waning (getting smaller) gibbous moon (this means about 2/3 of a full moon) joins the array of planets in the early morning sky, making for a pretty observation.
On July 24th, there will be a pretty line-up of Venus, the moon (now a crescent), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
In The Evening:
On July 10th, the moon will be only 2 degrees above the red-giant star Antares. Antares, near the near of the constellation Scorpius, is a huge star, as large as the orbit of Mars!
The constellation of Hercules, the hunter, will be due south and almost overhead. Hercules is one of my favorite constellations because its stars are really configured like a person (well, sort of!), its main stars are bright, and because within Hercules is the grand globular star cluster M13. M13 can just barely be seen through binoculars, but through a telescope, M13 is beautiful, being comprised of several hundred stars. Below are pictures Hercules and of M13. Use the below star chart to find Hercules.
Hercules
M13 Star Cluster
Star Chart – Can you see Hercules?
Saturn will finally move into the night-time sky in July, but in early July if doesn’t rise until about midnight.
As we discussed in the past, the very early morning is always the best time to see a meteor shower, but sometimes people just stay up late in July! If you’re one of those and you spend an hour or so watching the late-night sky, there’s a good chance you’ll see some meteors, part of the Delta Aquarid metor shower. There should be some meteors visible all month, but it will peak near the end of July.
The following Star Chart from Orion Telescopes website
During June, in the early pre-dawn sky, all our solar system’s unaided eye visible planets can be seen at one time—that means Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and they will be lined up in the same order as their distance from the sun! With the help of a (large) telescope, Uranus and Neptune will be visible too, plus the brightest asteroid, Vesta.
Schematic is from Sky and Telescope Magazine.
Mercury, as always, will be close to the rising sun and only easily visible in the later part of the month. On June 27th, a thin crescent moon will be only 3.5 degrees above Mercury, making Mercury relatively easy to see.
Venus will appear the brightest of all the planets, but its proximity to the sun will appear to dampen its brightness. On the 24th, Venus and the Pleiades will be in the same binocular view. On the morning of the 26th, the crescent moon and Venus will be only 2½ degrees apart, making for a very fun observation!
Mars will be the “reddish looking star” just to the left of bright Jupiter if you’re looking southward.
Jupiter will be southeast and, except for Venus and the moon, the brightest object in the sky at -2.5 magnitude.
A 1st magnitude star is a bright star. Jupiter is so bright that it often has a negative magnitude. However, Venus’s magnitude is -3.3 and Mars, for this month, is basically 0.0 magnitude.
Saturn rounds out the early morning planet show, gleaming due south all month long.
On June 21st, we’ll have the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Let summer begin!
June Nights
No late-night planets and no (known) meteor showers during this June.
A comet (PanSTARRS) will be in the night sky in the constellation of Ophiuchus, but it is expected to be dim and will require a large telescope to observe.
However, there are always interesting things to see. Using the below star chart, see if you can find the bright star Arcturus. Arcturus will be nearly overhead and is very bright. Follow the last two stars in the handle of the Big Dipper backwards, and you’ll find it! Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation of Bootes and is a Red Giant! Arcturus is about 25 times bigger than our sun! It is the 4th brightest star in our sky, shining a “zero” magnitude. For reference, Polaris, the North Star, and the brightest star in Ursa Minor, is a 2nd magnitude star.
While you’re in this part of the sky, take a close look at Mizar, the second star from the end of the handle of the Big Dipper. Mizar is really two stars and with a human eye, the second star is just barely visible!
Close to Bootes is another constellation that is fun to look at is Hercules, the Hunter. I don’t know which is the more powerful hunter—Hercules or Orion! Fortunately, they never meet because Orion is a winter constellation and Hercules is a spring constellation!
In the constellation of Hercules is a star cluster called M13, near the edge of the “square” of Hercules. With a pair of binoculars, you’ll be able to see it, but it will be faint.
Below is a close-up schematic for the constellation of Hercules. You’ll also see a close-up photo through a telescope of M13.
Do you know that the “Big Dipper” IS NOT a constellation? The Big Dipper is a grouping of stars, called an asterism, that resides within the constellation of Ursa Major, the Big Bear! The same holds true for the “Little Dipper.”
Below is the June Star Chart from Orion Telescopes website
The big-deal for the month of May is a total lunar eclipse! On May 15th, in Oregon, the moon will rise just as the total eclipse commences, at 8:30 pm. Totality will last for nearly 1.5 hours; after that, the moon’s motion will start taking it outside of the Earth’s shadow. The moon will appear “blood red” and considerably darker than normal because all the direct sunlight that normally reaches the moon will be blocked by Earth! The moon will be in the Earth’s shadow.
The moon isn’t completely dark during a lunar eclipse because of the Earth’s atmosphere refracting and reflecting solar rays, permitting some light to reach the moon—but not very much. The light arriving from the Earth’s atmosphere is tinted red which is why what we see in a total lunar eclipse is a “blood red” moon!
A total lunar eclipse can only occur during a full moon. But because of the inclination of the moon’s orbit, not every full moon results in a lunar eclipse—in fact, very few of them do! The last full total lunar eclipse was over three years ago.
From NASASchematic from In the Sky
Below is a photo of Earth’s atmosphere ring (of how Earth looks from the moon). In the middle is a blood red moon as it’s coming out of totality. To the right is a total eclipse in the middle of totality. All images are considerably magnified by a telescope. If seen from the same distance, the diameter of the Earth would appear about 4 times bigger than The Moon’s.
Stars in May:
The major planets are still not visible in May in the nighttime sky. If you want to see planets, you’ll need to get up early!
At Night (see the below star chart, which is calibrated at about 9:00 pm):
Orion is gone! And so is Canis Major, Canis Minor, and Taurus. They will return next winter.
The constellation of Leo has moved off to the east side of due south and the constellation that is now centered in the south is Virgo. Virgo is a big constellation with lots of galaxies for a big telescope, but its stars and faint and not very interesting for an observer without a telescope.
May 2nd. The star Aldebaron, the crescent Moon, the planet Mercury, and the Pleiades are a pretty grouping.
May 15th. Lunar eclipse.
May 16th. The night after the total lunar eclipse, The Moon will appear very close to Antares, the giant red star in Scorpius. Because of its reddish hue, Antares looks a bit like Mars to an unaided human eye, but it’s definitely not a planet! Antares is a very large “Red Giant” star, larger in diameter than the orbit of Mars!
May 18th, The Moon hangs near the head of Leo.
At any time this month, follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper backwards until you find “Arcturus.” Arcturus is a very bright star in Bootes that will be almost due south. An interesting thing is that Arcturus is believed to be 7 billion years old—far older than anything in our own solar system, which is believed to be 4.5 billion years old. It’s believe that Arcturus is just passing through, and wasn’t formed at the same time as the other stars in nearby stellar neighborhood!
From Sky and Telegraph magazine
In the early Morning:
May 6th. The Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower is at it’s height in the early morning (when it’s still completely dark, at about 4:00 am). This meteor shower is of rock debris left by Halley’s comet!
May 25th. Jupiter, Mars, and the Moon all appear VERY CLOSE together!
May 26th and 27th. The crescent moon and Venus will appear very close together.
May 29th. Jupiter and Mars appear VERY CLOSE to each other in the early morning sky. They will be only ½-degreeapart and in a telescope would be in the same eyepiece field of view!
