Here’s your starry sky for the first weekend in August. Saturday evening:
Midnight (by standard or approximately natural time – Daylight Shifting Time calls it 1 A.M.):
And Sunday morning twilight
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
The Moon was New early on August 1, so it appears in the evening scene; its age (at this mid-American location) is 71 hours.
The inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars – are all at this time close to the Sun. But arrayed across the midnight scene are all the outer planets. Only Jupiter and Saturn are easily visible; the others you probaboy have to see with the mind’ eye.
The four giants are no longer in order outward since Uranus overtook Neptune in 1993. More distant still is Pluto, now called a dwarf planet rather than a major planet, but included in our Uranus, Neptune, Pluto book because of the intertwined human story of the discovery of those three.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
I saw the Moon Saturn near conjunction a few nights back a bit underwhelming as the Moon’s brightness virtually reduced Saturn to a binocular object.the Jupiter one was better Jupiter packing much more punch plus I only had a tiny 5×10 Zeiss miniquick monocular with me which gives very modest views of the heavens although better than the naked eye.as an aside here’s my list of Messier objects I’ve aspied with the Zeiss miniquick on Moon free nights from dark places;m13,m3,m11,m27,m29,m39,m41,m45,m44,m42,m31,m24,m8.
In response to Rick’s comment about a triple conjunction in 1980, I think the big event that year was the triple conjunction of Mars and Jupiter starting in December 1979 and ending in May of 1980. Conjunctions between Mars and Jupiter at opposition should be more impressive than one involving Saturn because even at an aphelic opposition, Mars is quite a bit brighter than Saturn. It’s one of my big astronomy ‘regrets’ that I was going through a phase of diminished interest in the hobby at that time, so I made no effort to see it. Conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter when both are quite bright happen every 20 years or so (unless they happen to be near conjunction at the time), but Mars-Jupiter conjunctions when both are close to opposition are very rare. I blew my one chance in life to see that!
You may be correct. I think that what I remember is Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter being very close. At the last of the Jupiter and Mars conjunctions in May of 1980, Saturn would have been only about 7 degrees away from Mars and Jupiter.
I remember the show was fairly close to the zenith after sunset. At the third and final conjunction of Jupiter and Mars and in the couple months following, the 3 planets would have been fairly high in the sky an hour after sunset, especially since I was living in L.A. at the time (34 degrees north).
I wish I saved all my Astro Calendars.
BTW, check out a beautiful line of Luna, Jupiter and Antares tonight.
We had clouds last night, but I was able to look at Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon this evening with my telescope. One of Jupiter’s moons was just barely hanging off of the limb of the planet, always a neat sight.
I have kept all of my astro calendars, and in fact I’ve gone back to buy back issues from before I started to collect them, and the 1980 calendar is one I found on eBay or Amazon a few years ago. They’re pretty expensive LOL!
One of Guy’s themes in those years was describing and diagramming the Great Alignment of planets that occurred during the early 1980’s, when all of the planets were within a pie wedge of less than 90 degrees along the ecliptic at some point (maybe 1984?). There were two or three separate years (1980, 1982, and 1984) when Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all came to opposition in the March to July time frame. Of course, Guy’s words and pictures explaining the Great Alignment were unmatched. For one of his calendars, he chose a painting he did of an evening scene over the water somewhere in Baja California that depicted Mars and several other planets, and in his explanation of the painting, he described how that gathering was a precursor to the Great Alignment which would occur 6 years later (or thereabouts). It brought the movement of the solar system to life.
I think I should add a “Conjunctions: A Longer View” book to my projected series. The question is whether I’ll even have time and energy to complte the second one, on Venus, this year.
I would love to read about your insights into Conjunctions. In answering Rick about the 1980 Mars-Jupiter triple conjunction, I related that I have sometimes bought old copies of your AstroCal on eBay. That spurred me on to search eBay again, and before I knew it, I had ordered used copies of your 1977, 1979, and 1981 Calendars! Fortunately, they were all being offered by the same guy, so he gave me a refund on the shipping costs LOL.
There’s a cool animation of the the orbits of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, showing the 20 year conjunctions and the 60 year great conjunctions.
geogebra.org/m/dXk8gaNt
I’m not sure if I can see any of grus from my latitude, around 51.5, although I’ve worked out the gamma grus should clear the horizon and a vaguely remember seeing it once very low flickering in and out of the atmospheric extinction,I think that I was using a 10×42 monocular at the time.ive had a good view of it from Cassis in the south of France about 42 north and obviously further south on my sub equator traveling.formaulhault is my lowest first magnitude star followed by Antares.
Nice! I will go out tonight (if no clouds) and view the celestial show. Thanks for sharing, Guy. : )
I believe that the three stars that are part of the Y in Aquarius are not prominent enough to be included in these simplified maps. It took me a few minutes just to figure out what it was since it was so out of place. (What is that triangle?!) Alpha, beta, and delta Aquarii, alpha, beta and delta Capricorni are all much more prominent; as prominent as Enif which is included in the map. I do like that you included Grus in these simplified maps. Although most of Grus is difficult to see from 40 N where I live due to atmospheric extinction, it is quite prominent when I saw it in Arizona (~32 N) and it should be included in these maps.
It’s all a matter of program awkwardness, I’m afraid. A tangle of how to make it select certain stars and constellation form-lines at different levels… I’ll put in a few more hours of work on it sometime.
I enjoy finding Neptune and Uranus through binoculars. Aquarius’ water jar isn’t very bright, but it is an easily recognized signpost on the way to Phi Aquarii. Fourth magnitude Phi and a couple of sixth magnitude stars to Phi’s east and east-northeast form a 2-degree triangle with eighth magnitude Neptune in the middle.
We may have clear skies tomorrow morning! A chance to look for Mercury!
It’s interesting watching Jupiter approach Saturn since Great Conjunctions only happen about every 20 years. When I started studying astronomy in 1979 or 1980 I remember observing a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, or maybe it was a trio conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn?
Jupiter passed Saturn 1980 Dec 31, went back past Saturn 1981 Mar 4, overtook again July 34 – if we’re talking about closest approaches. If conjunctions in right ascension, the dates were 1981 Jan 14, Feb 19, and July 30.
Thank you. I searched for that info online but couldn’t find it. Unfortunately, I don’t have an ephemeris and I didn’t save my Astro Calendars. I did find it in Astro Companion n the Christmas section but that only referenced the Triple Conjunction in 7 B.C.
What exactly is a Great Conjunction?
Wikipedia says Great Conjunctions are whenever Jupiter overtakes Saturn (every 20 years), but your Astro Companion implies a Great Conjunction is the same as a Triple Conjunction, (occurring every 60 years).