Astroblog: Thursday July 29 to Thursday August 5

Monday, July 26, 2021

Thursday July 29 to Thursday August 5

The Last Quarter Moon is Saturday, July 31. This is a "blue" Last Quarter Moon. Venus is readily visible in the evening twilight and is leaving Mars behind. Mars is closest to the bright star Regulus on the 30th. Saturn and Jupiter are visible late in the evening sky. Saturn is at opposition, when it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on August 2nd. Southern Delta Aquarids meteor shower peaks 30th.

The Last Quarter Moon is Saturday, July 31. This is a "blue" Last Quarter Moon, the second last quarter Moon in a month. The Moon is at apogee, when it is furthest form the Earth, on August 2nd.

Evening sky on Monday, August 2 showing the eastern sky as seen from Adelaide at 21:00 pm ACST. Saturn and Jupiter form a line in the late evening sky. At this time Saturn is at Opposition, when it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth.

The insets shows the telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn at this time at the scale.

Similar views will be seen elsewhere in Australia at the equivalent local time, click to embiggen.

Whole sky at 19:01 ACST (90 minutes after sunset), on Saturday, July 31 as seen from Adelaide.

Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (90 minutes after sunset). click to embiggen.

Evening twilight sky on Friday, July 30 looking north-west as seen from Adelaide at 18:30 ACST (60 minutes after sunset). Venus is low above the horizon. with Mars and Regulus below. Mars is at its closest to the bright star Regulus.

Similar views will be seen throughout Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).

Evening sky looking east from Adelaide at 11 pm local time in South Australia. The starburst marks the radiant (the point where the meteors appear to originate from) of the Southern Delta Aquariids. Similar views will be seen elsewhere at the equivalent local time (click to embiggen).

The Southern Delta-Aquarids meteor shower runs from from 12 July to 23rd August, peaking on Thurday July 29 to 30. The number of meteors you will see depends on how high the radiant is above the horizon, and how dark your sky is. This shower is fairly faint, with the highest rate of around a meteor every 7 minutes. This year the shower occurs when the Moon is close to the radiant so lower rates will be seen than usual.

At 11 pm, face east, and look towards Jupiter (the brightest object above the eastern horizon). The radiant is just below Jupiter. This meteor shower should be visible from 10.00 pm until dawn. However, after Moon rise the rates will fall off considerably.

Mercury is lost in the twilight.

Venus is visible in the late twilight. I have been able to see Venus from 10 minutes after sunset and it is easily seen up to 90 minutes after sunset. Venus has passed Mars and heading towards the bright star Spica

Mars is visible in the evening sky above the north-western horizon in the early evening. Mars is being left behind by Venus but like Venus is heading for Regulus. On the 30th Mars is closest to Regulus.

Jupiter is now above the eastern horizon around 9 pm. Saturn and Jupiter form a line in the sky.

Saturn is now rising around 7:30pm.Saturn is at opposition, when it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on August 2nd.This is an excellent time for telescopic observation.

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.

Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to the current time.

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/

Labels: weekly sky