SKYLIGHTS
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, August 3, 2001.
The Moon passes its full phase the beginning of the week, the night
of Friday August 3, just about midnight in the Americas when the
Moon is at its highest point in the sky, nestled against the dim
stars of Capricornus, which it will quite blot out. A day later,
the Moon will pass three degrees south of Uranus and shortly
thereafter through its apogee point, where it is farthest from the
Earth. The near coincidence between apogee and full phase will
make maximum ocean tides, which occur at new and full Moon,
especially weak.
Mars, moving westerly against the background of southern Ophiuchus,
still dominates the evening sky (as it will for some time), bright
Antares closely to the right. With that exception, the planetary
sky belongs to the morning hours, where we find brilliant Venus,
Jupiter, and Saturn all to the east. Venus rises early, around 3
AM daylight time, well in advance of twilight. Jupiter is now
making an equal impact on the morning sky as well, rising about the
same time. On the morning of Monday, August 6, Venus and Jupiter
will be passing each other, Venus only a bit more than a degree to
the south of the Solar System's giant. Look then about 25 degrees
to the east to find Saturn. The only one of the ancient planets
not accessible is Mercury, which comes into superior conjunction
with the Sun (when it is on the other side of the Sun) on Sunday,
the 5th.
August begins the slow transition to fall as the Big Dipper starts
to fall into the northwestern sky. The Dipper is only a part of
the much larger figure of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, whose
forepaws are far down the northwesterly sky. As the Dipper drops,
look for Cassiopeia and Perseus to begin to climb in the northeast,
both locked within the starry stream of the Milky Way. The Little
Dipper, on the other hand, is for northerners making its highest
appearance of the early evening, almost all of it except for the
front bowl stars and the North Star (Polaris) blotted out by bright
moonlight.
Full moonlight is so bright about all one can do is to admire the
first magnitude stars. An irregular circle of six of them are on
early evening display. At the top are white Deneb and Vega, the
luminaries of Cygnus and Lyra, seen to the northeast. In the
clockwise direction (looking south), go next to orange Arcturus in
Bootes, then farther south to Spica in Virgo. Swing around to the
far south and there is reddish Antares (near Mars), then back up to
white Altair in Aquila. In the middle of the circle are Ophiuchus
and Serpens, which will gradually come forward as bright moonlight
wanes.
