Photo of the Week.. A three day old waxing crescent
Moon, reddened from forest fire smoke, sets over the lights of
town.
Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, August 3, 2012.
The Moon goes through its last quarter
this week during the day on Thursday, August 9, just about the time
of Moonset in North America. It will therefore rise the night of
Wednesday the 8th just shy of the quarter, while on the night of
the 9th it will rise just past the quarter, the difference only
barely noticeable. The early part of the week sees the Moon in its
waning gibbous phase. There are no
encounters with bright planets. The best we can do, and it's not
much, is a passage well to the north of Neptune on
Friday the 3rd, then one north of Uranus three
days later. Rather similar to each other, both with about four
times the Earth's diameter and 16 or so times the mass, closer
Uranus (now in western Pisces to
the northeast of the Vernal
Equinox) is slowly moving away from Neptune, which lies in Aquarius to the east of its boundary
with Capricornus. On the morning
of Friday the 10th, the Moon goes through its apogee, where it
is farthest from Earth.
The planetary parings continue, the one in the evening growing
stronger, that in the morning falling apart. In the early evening,
Mars,
Saturn, and Spica make a fine
close triangle with the red planet at the western apex and Saturn
just to the north of the star. Gaining rapidly on Saturn, Mars
will pass between the other two next week rather like a football
through the goal posts. It will be fun to watch. The pretty
configuration sets by 10:30 PM Daylight Time. In the morning sky,
Jupiter is leaving
Venus behind, the giant planet rising just after local midnight
(1 AM Daylight) in Taurus to the
left of the Hyades, while the
second planet from the Sun does not climb out of bed until after
2:30 AM, though well in advance of twilight. Nevertheless, they
still make a riveting duo as they proceed across the morning sky
until twilight takes them away.
In mid-evening look for the Big
Dipper as it falls into the northwestern sky. Following along
behind it to the north of overhead, find the squarish head of Draco, the celestial Dragon, which
can rather easily be found just to the northwest of Vega, the brightest star in the neighborhood
and just barely third brightest in the northern hemisphere.
