The New Moon is Saturday, August 11. The Moon is at perigee, when it is closest to the Earth, on the 11th.
The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks on the morning of Thursday August 13. Despite this being a quite reasonable meteor shower in the northern hemisphere, for most of Australia, the radiant is below the horizon, and only the very occasional meteor shooting up from the northern horizon will be seen. Anyone south of Brisbane will see only the occasional meteor, say maybe one or two per hour, the further north of Brisbane you are, the more meteors you will see. A full observing guide is at my Perseid page.
Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).
Brilliant Venus is now visible in the evening until well after full dark. Venus is visible to the unaided eye from sunset, easy to see 30-60 minutes after sunset and can viewed well after 90 minutes after sunset. During the week Venus moves towards the bright star Spica. On the 14th and 15th Venus is close to the crescent Moon.
Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time (just after 60 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).
The inset is a simulated telescopic view of Jupiter and its moons at 19:07 ACST (90 minutes after sunset) on the 13th, Europa is just finishing a transit. Io will undergo transit shortly after. Then their respective shadow transits will start. Jupiter is shown as seen with a 5mm telescopic eyepiece.
Similar views will be seen throughout Australia 90 minutes after sunset (click to embiggen).
Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).
Venus is readily visible above the horizon in the early evening. It is bright enough to be visible from just on sunset and to well past 90 minutes after sunset at full dark, when it is two and a half hand-spans above the horizon. During the week Venus moves towards the bright star Spica. On the 14th and 15th Venus is close to the crescent Moon.
Mercury is lost in the twilight and will reappear in the morning skies later in the month.
Jupiter is high in the early evening sky above the northern horizon. It was at Opposition on the May 9th, and is still visible most of the night. It is a good telescopic object in the mid to late evening and is highest around 17:47 local time (just before full dark). There are some good Jovian Moon events this week. This week Jupiter is coming closer to the bright star alpha Librae (Zubenelgenubi).
Mars is in Capricornius and is readily seen in the evening. Mars was at opposition last month on July 27th, when it was biggest and brightest as seen from Earth. This was the best opposition since 2003. However Mars will remain bright and large in even small telescopes for some time. In a telescope you may see a few features as the huge dust storm sweeping the planet continues to subside. A guide to observing Mars at the time is at my Mars Opposition page.
Saturn is climbing higher the evening sky, and is now a good telescopic object in the mid to late evening sky. It was at opposition, when Saturn is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on June the 27th. It is within binocular range of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae.
Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.
Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.
Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/
Thanks Ian !
ReplyDeleteUnlike our spam friend above, I (and I’m sure many other people) genuinely appreciate your continued posts !