For August 2023, the full moon, the Thunder Moon, is on Aug. 1. It passes two degrees south of Saturn on Aug. 3. The last quarter moon is three degrees north of Jupiter and Uranus on Aug. 8, with all three rising about midnight. The slender waning crescent moon will offer little problem for observing the Perseid meteor showers on the weekend of Aug. 12 from our Big Lagoon site. Expect a meteor a minute under dark skies, with most arriving after midnight, and the radiant in Perseus climbing higher in the dawn hours. The new moon is on Aug.16, and passes the planets Mercury and Mars in twilight on Aug. 18, a great photo op, the moon is first quarter on Aug. 24, and a “Blue Moon” (the second full ,moon of a calendar month) on Aug. 30, when it lies two degrees south of Saturn.
Mercury is at its best evening appearance on Aug. 9, at greatest eastern elongation 27 degrees east of the Sun in the evening twilight. I plan to use my new 589mm sodium filter to detect the ”comet” tail of sodium it is shedding, driven behind it by the solar wind. Cutting edge research with the new Dwarf II telescope. These new technologies have so much promise for those just starting in amateur astronomy. Venus lies between us and the sun at inferior conjunction on Aug. 13, but will become visible just before sunrise in the dawn sky by the first week of September. Mars too is lost in the sun’s glare this month. Jupiter is close to Uranus in morning sky in Aries, but will be rising in the northeast by 10 p.m. at month’s end. Saturn is at opposition, rising in southeast in Aquarius at sunset on Aug. 27; compared to last year, the rings this year are closing, and appear much thinner in the telescope.
For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit the Skymaps website and download the map for August.
The Big Dipper rides high in the northwest 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” southeast to bright orange Arcturus, the brightest star of Spring. 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.
The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega dominates the northeast sky. Binoculars reveal the small star just to the northeast 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.
To the southeast, Antares is bright in the heart of Scorpius. It appears reddish (its Greek name means rival of Ares or Mars to the Latins) because it is half as hot as our yellow Sun. It is bright because it is a bloated red supergiant, big enough to swallow up our solar system all the way out to Saturn’s orbit! Just above the tail of the Scorpion are two fine naked eye star clusters, M-7 (discovered by Ptolemy and included in his catalog about 200 AD) and M-6, making one of the best binocular views in the sky. Your binoculars are ideally suited to reveal many fine open star clusters and nebulae in this region of our Galaxy.
East of the Scorpion’s tail is the teapot shape of Sagittarius, which marks the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. Looking like a cloud of steam coming out of the teapot’s spout is the fine Lagoon Nebula, M-8, easily visible with the naked eye. Above it is the Trifid Nebula, M-20, another fine and very colorful stellar nursery. Just east of these young star birthplaces is the fine globular cluster M-22, faintly visible to the naked eye and spectacularly resolved in scopes of 8” or larger aperture. Look just east of the top star in the teapot of Sagittarius with binoculars.
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 smart phone 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 the Fridays and Saturdays for these weekends: August 25 and 26, and September 22 and 23.
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, Aug. 12 (Perseid Peak!), and Sept. 9.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook, or call our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State at 291-9334 or lrogers@pensacolastate.edu.
It is only three more new moons until the partial solar eclipse of Oct. 14. If your school, scouts, church, or civic organization would like to help distribute safe solar viewers to the community, please contact me about custom orders of our Eclipse Viewers. Proceeds go to support the Merry Edenton-Wooten Endowed Chair in Space Sciences through the Pensacola State College Foundation. Merry had served as planetarium producer at the E.G. Owens Planetarium back in the 1980s, and wanted to fund a return to public evening shows for the community at the Space and Science Theatre. She passed away of Alzheimers in March 2021, and this has been our family project since. At present, we have $15,000 toward our goal of $25,000 for funding evening shows again. These viewers can be used for safe viewing and photography of the sun anytime, including the big spots Michael shot, and of course for the partial phases of the solar eclipses this October and next April.
