Over the next two evenings, Saturday August 18th, and Sunday the 19th, the waning gibbous Moon will pass within about 8-10o from the reddish star Antares, the ‘heart’ of Scorpius the Scorpion.
Joining the Moon and Jupiter are the planets Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Dwarf Planet Ceres.
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Thursday August 16th Venus reaches the point in its orbit called greatest eastern elongation. As this graphic shows an inner planet, Venus or Mercury, is more or less at a right angle (90o) from the Sun and Earth at eastern elongation. From the surface of the Earth, your backyard, for example, Venus is to the left, or eastern side of the Sun and is setting after the Sun.
At eastern elongation the angle between Venus and the Sun is at its greatest, which for this elongation Venus will be 45.9o from the Sun. In terms of viewing Venus, this is as about as late as Venus will set, about 4 hours after sunset local time, meaning for some Venus may set close to midnight local time. This animated graphic shows Venus at sunset, then with Venus’s orbit shown, and then with the horizon removed to see where the Sun is relative to Venus.
From eastern elongation forward Venus will be moving westward toward the Sun, and each day setting closer and closer to the time of sunset. By October Venus will have orbited to inferior conjunction – between the Earth and the Sun. During this part of the inner planet orbit, from eastern elongation to inferior conjunction, the distance from Earth decreases and the apparent size of Venus increases. Venus also goes through phase changes much like our Moon, and so from eastern elongation to inferior conjunction Venus wanes from a small appearing gibbous phase to an increasingly thinner crescent phase.
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Over the next two evenings, Thursday August 16th, the waxing crescent Moon, and Friday the 17th, the first quarter Moon will pass within about 7-8o from the outer planet Jupiter. Jupiter with a -2.0 apparent magnitude, is about 0.5o from the 2.7 apparent magnitude star Zubenelgenubi in Libra the Scales.
Joining the Moon and Jupiter are the planets Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Dwarf Planet Ceres.
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Wednesday evening August 15th the 4.5-day old waxing crescent Moon will be about 7o from the blue-white star Spica in Virgo the Harvest Maiden.
In addition to the Moon are five planets spread out from west to east – Dwarf Planet Ceres, and the planets Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.
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Over the next 10 days, from August 13th to the 23rd, the Moon will move eastward, as it always does, following the ecliptic and interacting with planets and stars near the ecliptic.
click on any graphic below to view each of the graphics full sized.
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Monday evening August 13th the thin 2.5-day young waxing crescent Moon will be about 10o from the inner planet Venus, and about 8o from the Dwarf Planet Ceres. However at 8th magnitude Ceres will be not be naked-eye visible, but Venus at a -4.6 apparent magnitude will be hard to miss!
And spread out from west to east are the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars.
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Before sunrise on Saturday August 11th, Sunday August 12th, and Monday August 13th look toward the east and southeast for ‘shooting stars’, or meteors. The short-lived streaks of light are radiating outward from the area of the constellation Perseus the Hero. These are the annual Perseids – one of the best meteor showers each year. And these three days are centered more or less on the peak.
The Perseid Meteor Shower is named for the constellation from where the meteors radiate outward. This is the same for all meteor showers, and the ‘spot’ in the sky is known as the radiant. The Perseid radiant, as shown in the graphic, is within the Perseus constellation, and under ideal viewing conditions (dark and moonless skies) an average of about 60-80 meteors per hour could possibly be seen. This year without the interference of moonlight will increase the chances of seeing the meteors.
The peak for this year’s Perseids is Monday September 13th at 1 UT (8 pm CDT) however Perseus and the radiant rise at around 11 pm local time. A couple of hours later should be high enough over the horizon to become visible. I always look for a triangle made from using the Pleiades open star cluster, the bright star Capella in the constellation Auriga, and a not as bright star, Mirfak in Perseus. The radiant is up to the left from Mirfak as the graphic shows.
Best viewing times for seeing the Perseids are early morning a few hours before sunrise after Perseus has risen. This is an ideal time as the part of Earth you are viewing from is rotating toward the east, in the direction the Earth is revolving around the Sun. This means you will be seeing metaors ‘head-on’ as the enter the atmosphere.
Meteor showers result from the Earth’s orbital path intersecting areas of comet debris. Comets, as they orbit the Sun, leave behind pieces of their icy, dirty, selves. If these debris clouds happen to be along the Earth’s orbital path then the Earth will regularly pass through the comet debris cloud. As this happens the small comet pieces hit our outer atmosphere and vaporize from the friction generated heat. We then see these as the shooting stars that make up meteor showers.
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