What's Up in the Night Sky

August 2026 - Vol. 30, No. 8

This Month's Night Sky - NOTE: The next paragraph describes the sky as it appears at 10 pm EST (11 pm EDT) near mid- month. The sky also looks this way at 11 pm EST (midnight EDT) during the beginning of the month and at 9 pm EST (10 pm EDT) by month's end.

Bright blue-white Vega (Lyra) shines high overhead as it "leads" the Summer Triangle across the night sky. The "Triangle" is the summer’s most prominent asterism and is made up of three stars: Vega, the brightest, Deneb (Cygnus) and Altair (Aquila). Scorpius and the bright star Antares occupy the southern sky. Look for another famous asterism, "the teapot" (Sagittarius). The stars of constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius, embedded in the "Milky Way" (part of one of the spiral "arms" of our galaxy), are at their best this month.

MERCURY in the morning sky early in the month, lost to superior conjunction on the 27th. VENUS In the evening sky, appears low on the western horizon. MARS rises in the morning sky, moving from Taurus into Gemini this month. JUPITER rising in the morning sky late in the month, is too low for northern observers. SATURN, rising before midnight in Pisces. URANUS, rises in the morning sky in Taurus. NEPTUNE, rises before midnight in Pisces. Total solar eclipse this month on August 12, starting near Greenland and down to the Mediterranian Sea. A good partial lunar eclipse on the 28th favors the Americas

Review how to determine Angular Measurement.

Calendar of Events

NOTE: For those observers not in the ET zone, convert the calendar times to your zone's time by subtracting one hour for CT, two for MT and three for PT. Don't forget to adjust for Daylight Savings Time when necessary by subtracting one hour from your planisphere's time. Dawn and dusk times must also be corrected. See your local newspaper, TV news, or the internet for sunrise and sunset times. Find the current information at the U.S. Naval observatory. Unfortunately some of these events may occur during daylight hours in your area.

DATE	EVENT
02	Mercury at greatest elongation W. (19 deg.)
07	Moon in the Pleiades star cluster (M-45).
09	Mars 4 deg. S. of Moon.
10	Moon at perigee.
11	Mercury 2 deg. S. of Moon.
12	A Total Solar Eclipse lasting for 2 minutes and 1 second at greatest eclipse. The eclipse begins in the Artic, moving into northern Greenland, where totality will pass over major fjords in the Scoresby Sound, crossing the Denmark Strait where it reaches greatest eclipse. The path skims the western coast of Iceland reaching the capital city of Reykjavic where totality lasts 59 seconds, it then reaches the northwestern Iberian Peninsula, crossing Spain and touching Portugal. Valencia is the largest Spanish city on the path, where totality lasts 1 minute. The path of totality continues into the Mediterranean, reaching the Balearic Islands, including Ibiza, Mallorca, and Menorca, falling off into the Mediterranean Sea where it ends.
13	The Perseid meteor shower peak. These meteors are the result of dust ejected as Comet 109/Swift-Tuttle has crossed Earth's orbit repeatedly over many thousands of years. Our atmosphere encounters these particles at about 37 miles/second causing the streaks of light we enjoy every August. The good news is, this year's shower takes place one day after the new moon. This is the best time to view the meteor shower, best seen after midnight. How many can you count?
14	Mercury at perihelion. Mercury 0.7 deg. S. of the Beehive (M-44).
15	Venus at greatest elongation E. (46 deg.) Mercury 0.6 deg. N. of Jupiter. Mars 0.6 deg. S of M35.
16	Venus 2 deg. N. of Moon.
21	Alpha Scorpii, Antares, 0.6 deg. N. of Moon, occultation from most of Australia, S. New Zealand, most of Antarctica, tip of South America.
22	Moon at apogee.
24	Mercury at greatest heliocentric lat. N.
27	Mercury in superior conjunction.
28	August's full moon is often called the " Sturgeon Moon" because it is the time of year that lake sturgeon were very abundant and easy to catch in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain in North America. Unfortunately, they are nearly extinct today. Conservation efforts are helping to restore their numbers. Partial lunar eclipse The last eclipse for 2026 is a partial lunar eclipse. The Earth's shadow will cover 96% of the Moon's disk at greatest eclipse. This will be a deep partial eclipse, visible from North and South America, western Europe, and Africa.

Lunar Almanac for August 2026

Phases of the Moon	Phase and Date(s)	Best viewed before local midnight
	New 12	Deep Space Objects
	1st. Qtr 20	Planets & Moon
	Full 28	Moon
	Last Qtr 06	Deep Space & Planets

Topic of the month: Perseid Meteor Shower

The month of August brings us a fabulous meteor shower, the Perseid shower. Meteor showers are caused when the Earth encounters particles of dusts that are ejected by comets that travel from the outer solar system to swing around the Sun in their orbit. The particles burn up in Earth's atmosphere, causing a bright flash. Sometimes they leave trails (especially the Perseids) or crumble into bright pieces. The brightest meteors are called fireballs. In the case of the Perseids, the parent body that causes the shower of particles is the periodic comet Swift-Tuttle. Because the particles are also orbiting the Sun in a stream following their parent body, all of the meteors in the stream appear to come from the same area of the sky. This is called the "radiant". Meteor showers are named after the area of the sky that they appear to originate from. Although they will streak across the entire sky, the Perseid meteors will seem to emerge from the constellation of Perseus. Showers strength is measured by the Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR), the number of meteors that could be seen by an observer watching the zenith under ideal conditions. For the Perseid shower, 90 meteors per hour might be seen at the peak, August 13 at 2h UT.

Meteors are usually best after local midnight because of the angle of the Earth and Sun. This is especially true of the Perseids because the constellation is not fully above the horizon until about 1 am local time for observers in North America. The constellation is deep in the bright star fields of the Milky Way and will appear as a bright group of stars at on the eastern horizon at midnight. Perseus is followed into the night sky by the ecliptic constellation of Taurus and the bright star Aldebaran.

August 2026 offers one of the best circumstances for observing the shower. The Moon is New on 12th and will allow a moonless night for observations. Saturn is moving toward opposition in early October so it will be visible most of the night. The planet Mars is rising in the morning twilight. In the northern sky meteors will shoot through the dippers, but no part of the sky is off limits.

There is really no equipment necessary to view the Perseid shower. Many people like to pull out a lawn chair or heavy blanket and lie under the stars. Your blanket or chair may become very wet from dew, so make sure to prepare. A plastic tarp under the blanket works wonders. Also, you may want to set up your telescope or bring binoculars to observe the bright star clouds of the Milky Way especially if you drive to a dark site or are planning to stay late into the night. If you do plan to spend a few hours, a beverage and a snack will be a welcome treat. It may cool off after midnight, so dress warmly. Open country fields are subject to deer ticks and mosquitos, so bring what you need to protect yourself.

--See You Under the Stars!
Astra for Astra's Almanac