August 1 – Aug. starts with a Conjunction with Mars 1.4-degrees North of Uranus
August 4th – Mercury 0.7-degrees North of Regulus… best for southern hemisphere observers
August 5th – First Quarter Moon & Straight Wall visible
August 9th – Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter for E. NA
August 11th – Full Moo
August 12th Saturn 4.5 degrees above Moon
August 13th – Perseid Meteor Shower peaks…too close to full moon friends 😦
August 14th – Neptune 3-degrees north of the Moon
Saturn at Opposition
August 15th – Jupiter 1.9 degrees North of Moon
August 16th – Double Shadow Transit on Jupiter
August 17th Asteroid 704 Interamnia at Opposition mag. 9. It is a large F-type asteroid. It is the fifth-largest asteroid, after Ceres, Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea. Discovered on 2 October 1910 by Vincenzo Cerulli, and named after the Latin name for Teramo, Italy, where Cerulli worked.
August 18th – Uranus Occultation by Moon close for all others
August 19th – Last quarter – be ready to observe…best 2 weeks of observing for year! Aug. 29th Mars is also 3 -degrees South of the Moon tonight.
August 22 – Minor Planet Vesta at opposition
August 25th – Minor Planet Ceres Occultation for S.S America close for rest of us. On this date William Herschel died 200 yrs ago.
August 26th – look for old ~20hr from New Moon in E. before Sunrise
August 27th – New moon & Mercury at greatest elongation visible in evening sky but best for S. of equator.
Comet K2 Panstarrs is expected to remain a reasonably bright binocular object as it leaves Ophiuchus and passes into Scorpius as it continues it’s southward journey.
From AAVOS August Variable: Variable star R Aquilae. Located just off the trailing edge of the western wing of Aquila the Eagle, about 5 degrees south of Zeta Aquilae, which marks the wing tip. R Aquilae is a red giant star and about the same mass as our Sun, but, like many of us, has expanded as it aged. If it were located in place of our Sun, Earth would be orbiting inside its outer atmosphere!
At its brightest, R Aquilae is visible to the naked eye as a dim, red star but it dims over 600 times from its brightest making it just visible in binoculars. Its period from one dimming to the next is 270 days. Oddly, the period has been decreasing about 9 hours per year since it was discovered to be variable in 1915. The reason for this decrease is unknown at this time.
The Actual Astronomy Podcast 