The planets continue to be the big feature for sky-watchers throughout the month of August in 2024, although favorable conditions for dark skies also will offer us good viewing for the annual Perseid meteor shower.
The result of debris left behind by the passage of Comet 109P Swift-Tuttle, the Perseids are annually one of the most productive meteor showers.
Maximum rate of meteors is 100 per hour; the direction to look for them is east, and the time is 90 minutes before sunrise on the mornings of Aug. 11 and Aug. 12.
An additional treat this year is that Jupiter and Mars are in the exact same place in the sky as the Perseids.
Mars and Jupiter are very close to each other on Aug. 12 and will appear to draw even closer when they form a conjunction — when two or more celestial objects appear to be very close to one another in the sky from our line of sight here on Earth — on Aug. 14. Mars will be above Jupiter, which is the brighter of the two planets.
Mars and Jupiter appear among the background stars of Taurus the bull (zodiac). The brightest star of Taurus, Aldebaran, is seen to the right of Mars, appearing reddish — it is a red star — but dimmer than Mars.
Sky-watchers should try to start watching Mars and Jupiter in the eastern morning sky before sunrise around Aug. 5, when Mars appears above Aldebaran.
Continue to look at the two planets for the next nine days as their orbits gradually bring them to their Aug. 14 conjunction. This conjunction of two bright planets is a sight not to miss.
Venus will be an easy object to spot in the western skies as long as one has a clear view to the horizon. Venus will be very bright but will not have a lot of altitude, so one needs to look close to the horizon 30 minutes or so after sunset.
Saturn rises around 10 p.m. above the eastern horizon Aug. 1, and about 8 p.m. by Aug. 31.
In early August, Saturn will not be high enough in the sky to be seen easily until midnight, but it will be up enough to see by 10 p.m. at the end of the month. Its rings will be easy to see in small telescopes then.
Next month, Saturn will be at its closest to Earth this year and will rise in the east as the sun sets in the west. We call this opposition.
The beautiful summer Milky Way is visible when nights are clear and we find locations away from street lights, running from due south in the regions of Sagittarius and Scorpius, up and across to the zenith and down toward the northeastern sky.
The waning crescent moon will appear just above Jupiter on the morning of Aug. 27 — before sunup.
August’s full moon is on the 19th.