Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, August 29, 2014.
The waxing crescent Moon climbs up
the western evening sky the early part of the week, passing first quarter on the morning of
Tuesday, September 2. By the time of Moonrise that afternoon, the
Moon will already have launched itself into its waxing gibbous phase, full Moon not achieved until next Monday
the 8th. Having passed conjunction with Saturn last week, Mars is now east of
the more slowly-moving ringed planet. The separation between the two planets will
rapidly grow. But for now, they are close enough together that
they will make a fine triangle with the crescent Moon in late
twilight the evening of Sunday the 31st, the two planets about the
same brightness, Mars of course the redder. The previous and
following evenings are worth a look as well, with the Moon
to the west of the pair the early evening of Saturday the
30th, to the east on Monday the 1st. By the end of the week,
Mars will be about a third of the way from Saturn to namesake Antares (meaning like Ares, or
Mars) in Scorpius. Look early, as
the planets set shortly after 10 PM Daylight Time.
Since the beginning of the year, Venus has been the strikingly obvious
object in the morning sky. As Venus slips away, rising in late
twilight, it's
Jupiter's turn. While not as bright as Venus, it has the
advantage of rising in a dark sky around 4 AM, well before the
onset of dawn. Jupiter takes just short of a dozen years to orbit
the Sun. It
therefore on the average spends about one year in each constellation of the Zodiac. During much of the year
we've seen it plying its way against the bright stars of Gemini. Now it's dim Cancer's turn, the planet just to the
southeast of the Beehive
cluster, which is easily visible in binoculars. The morning
of Friday the 5th will feature a special sight: Venus under a
degree to the north of the star Regulus in Leo, with Jupiter higher up.
In mid-evening and mid-temperate latitudes, the star Vega shines nearly overhead. Just to
the southeast of it lies a lovely small parallelogram that makes
the rest of the constellation of Lyra, the Harp, or Lyre. To the east of Vega find Deneb at the top of the Northern Cross, while to the west is
the box of stars that makes the Keystone of Hercules.
Just south of the northwestern star of the Keystone (Eta Herculis) is one of the grand
sights of the sky, the massive globular cluster Messier 13, which is easily visible
in binoculars.
