Astronomy news for the week starting Friday, August 31, 2012.
We start the week with the Moon opposite the Sun, formal full Moon taking place the morning of
Friday, August 31, just after Moonset in North America. The entire
week is thus spent in the waning gibbous
phase, third quarter finally achieved on
the morning of Saturday, September 8. There is not much "in the
way" as the Moon rides upward roughly following the northerly path
of the ecliptic through dim
Pisces and south of Aries. The night of Sunday the 2nd,
the Moon does trek north of Uranus, but it's not much of an event. Far better
is the view the morning of Friday the 7th, when the Moon will lie
to the west of bright Jupiter and
between the Hyades and Pleiades of Taurus. The night of Thursday the
6th, the Moon goes through apogee, where it
is farthest from Earth in its monthly round.
Getting difficult to catch, Mars and Saturn now set
shortly after the end of formal twilight. Saturn will then
disappear quickly, while the setting time of closer Mars (which
falls only slowly behind the pace of Earth) will more or less
parallel the end of twilight for the rest of the year. The first
of the two big risings is that of Jupiter, which now comes up over
the horizon shortly before midnight Daylight Time to the northeast of
Taurus's Hyades. Next up is far brighter Venus, which
rises about 3 AM in southeastern Gemini. The early part of the week finds it passing
several degrees south of Pollux
and Castor.
As August transitions to September, and the Moon gets out of the
way, the early evening, at least in a dark sky, belongs to the Milky Way, which is sadly lost from town.
But you can still imagine its path as it cascades out of Cygnus (nearly overhead at 11 PM) then
down through Aquila (marked by
bright Altair) and into Sagittarius to the south, the constellation best marked by the five-
star upside down Little Milk
Dipper. Farther south and close to the horizon lies the gentle
curve of stars that makes up Corona
Australis, the Southern Crown, whose northern version, Corona Borealis, is now slipping into
the northwest, following the Big
Dipper and Arcturus of Bootes.
