For August 2025, the first quarter moon is on August 1, coinciding with our Pavilion Gaze at Pensacola Beach. The Full Moon, the Hay Moon, is on August 9. The waning gibbous moon passes a degree south of Saturn on the morning of August 12; alas, it will interfere with the peak of the Perseid meteor shower on the same morning. The Moon is last quarter on August 16, and passes five degrees north of Jupiter on August 19. The crescent moon passes five degrees north of Venus on the 20th.
The triangle of the moon and the two brightest planets on these two mornings will be very photogenic, even with a handheld smartphone. The moon is new on August 23. Back in the evening sky, the thin crescent moon will pass three degrees south of Mars in the dusk on August 26th. The moon returns to first quarter on August 31, marking the phase-based synodic month of 29.5 days.
Mercury is in the dawn sky, but very hard to observe in the dawn. Venus is much easier to find, particularly when it passes a degree south of fainter Jupiter on the morning of August 12. The crescent moon will join them on August 19-20, as seen below. Mars is faint and low in the northwest evening sky, very distant from us and tiny in a telescope. It will be lost in the sun’s glare for the next several months. Jupiter rises about 3 a.m. as August begins, and Saturn about 11 p.m. in Pisces. Here is the grouping of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter on the morning of August 20.
With the naked eye, dark-adapted by several minutes away from any bright lights, is a wonderful instrument to stare up into deep space, far beyond our own Milky Way. For a detailed map of northern hemisphere skies, visit www.skymaps.com website and download the map for August.
The Big Dipper rides high in the NW at sunset, but falls lower each evening. Good scouts know to take their 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 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.
Spike south from Arcturus to Spica, the hot blue star in Virgo. From Spica curve to Corvus the Crow, a four-sided grouping. It is above Corvus, in the arms of Virgo, where our large scopes will show members of the Virgo Supercluster, a swarm of over a thousand galaxies about 50 million light years away from us.
Hercules is overhead, with the nice globular cluster M-13 marked on your sky map and visible in binocs. It is faintly visible with the naked eye under dark sky conditions, and among the best binoc objects on the map back page.
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.
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.
To the south is the southernmost member of the Triangle, Altair, the brightest star of Aquila the Eagle. If you scan the Milky Way with binocs or a small spotting scope between Altair and Deneb, you will find many nice open star clusters and also a lot of dark nebulae, the dust clouds from which new stars will be born in the future.
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. Get a dark sky site, and use the objects listed on the back of the August 2024 SkyMap printout to guide you to the best deep sky wonders for binoculars and small telescopes.
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 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 the 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 at the front gate before it closes at sunset! Please join us at the amphitheater on Saturday evenings, July 27, August 24, September 28, and October 26.
For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, join us on Facebook, visit our online club website and events calendar at sites.google.com/view/escambiaastronomers, or contact our sponsor, Lauren Rogers at Pensacola State at lrogers@pensacolastate.edu. Be aware of “pop-up” gazes when clear skies permit at the Airport Approach on Langley for special help sessions, ISS passes, etc, as announced on the EAAA’s Facebook pages.
