Night Skies For August

John and Peggy Hurley | Jul 31, 2025

It’s August: that means the Persied Meteor Shower! Peaks on the 12th but visible from darkish skies all month. This shower cam produce a lot of visible meteors.  This year, the moon will be producing a lot of light to compete. All meteor showers are created by periodic comets. These are comets that return in less than 200 years. The ones that create the meteor showers have at least their dust tail intersect with Earth’s orbit. 109P/Swift-Tuttle (133 years) is the sire of the Persied Shower. Most meteors are smaller than a pea and break apart before they can produce any light. These might be found as black specks in your eaves. Larger pieces will start to incandesce (glow brightly) as soon as they intersect with our atmosphere (about 100 kms). Most are completely destroyed in the time you see them. Some are a bit larger and may well make it to the ground (meteorite). Really bright ones are called Bolides. Many people think the meteorite has landed less than a kilometre from home. Our perception is trying to relate it to something we know. What direction the meteor was travelling in and how high might help find a meteorite. Finding one is rare. If it had, ‘just landed’ don’t touch it with bare hands —it is very cold — might even frost up. They are generally the colour of soot on the outside. Edges may look a little softened. Most are heavier than they look like they should be. There is a class of light weight meteorites, so don’t discount one because it isn’t heavy.  You need to report your find so try contacting a museum or University near you. The Federal Government gets to buy that meteor first (at market value)

Mercury will be hard to see at the beginning of the month low in the ENE and will appear stationary on the 10th.. It should get better after mid-month. Venus (ENE) and Jupiter (rises ENE and E by dawn) will be in the morning sky. Mars is low in the West and will set before 10 PM, Saturn will be rising in the East at the same time and will be high in the SE by dawn.

First Quarter moon is on August 1 and on the 3rd the bright reddish star, Antares, will be just to the North of the Moon. The Berry Ripening Moon is full on the 9th. The morning planets will be quite close this week and may even fit in the same binocular view. In the late evening sky, Saturn and the Moon are visible. August 16 in Last Quarter Moon. The 19th sees Mercury at its greatest elongation (19 degrees from the Sun) in the morning and in the morning of the 20th, Jupiter, Venus and the Moon will line up with Castor and Pollux the bright stars of Gemini. New Moon is on the 23rd. Mars will be just N of the Moon on the 26th. First Quarter Moon will be on the 31st.

Perseus is a large constellation just returning to the night sky and has many beautiful objects in it, including the Double Cluster (an open cluster is a group of stars that were born in the same nebula and are still close together), Algol (the Demon Star) (one of the first non-nova variable stars discovered) To find Perseus go to Polaris (the pole star) and look away from Big Dipper toward Cepheus (a  sharp, stubby pencil shape) and Cassiopeia (the W in the sky). Look below the easternmost end of the W and the line of brighter stars through part of the Milky Way is Perseus. Other elements of the Greek myth are very close, so a story teller would be able to check or embellish the story as needed.  Following the point of the second V toward the Andromeda Galaxy (can be a naked eye object in a very dark, clear sky. Definitely a greenish fuzzy patch in binoculars. A small telescope will show the galaxy). All the parts of the Greek myth are nearby, Cepheus and Cassiopeia are Andromeda’s parents, who bragged about her beauty. This caused the gods to send a sea monster, Cetus, to wreck the coastline until he was given Andromeda to eat. She was chained to the cliff and just as Cetus was about to take her, Perseus arrived on his winged sandals, having just beheaded Medusa. As the head was still in his hand it turned Cetus to stone and its blood to coral. Pegasus was born from Medusa’s neck as she had been expecting a child sired by Poseidon.

Clear Skies.