Sky Guide August 2016

What to look out, and up, for in August.

Our highlights of this month’s skies with the planet on offer to observers and imagers:

Jupiter takes a bow as it departs until December Mars & Saturn – with a long conjunction at the end of August Mercury & Venus make their way out of the glare of the Sun Neptune & Uranus on offer in Aquarius & Pisces

Next up is the meteor showers and, due to the long daylight hours and dearth of cometary debris in this part of Earth’s orbit this time of year, we only have one shower of note in August:

The magnificent Perseids peaking on 11th/12th August The 2nd asteroid to be discovered in the asteroid belt, 2 Pallas, reaches opposition on 22nd August reaching magnitude 8.7 and can be found in the constellation Equuelus.

Then we each take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

Jeni – The Milky Way: Naked eye enjoyment of our home galaxy Paul – The Cygnus Loop/The Veil Nebulae Ralph – Albireo – the most colourful binary star in the sky

And we finish this sky guide with August’s moon phases.