Planet Scenes August 2022
August highlight is to be determined
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August 29 (Jupiter Neptune Juno Mars Uranus) Just after midnight on August 29 I caught Jupiter, Neptune, and Juno high in the southeast, and just before morning twilight I finished up with Mars and Uranus. These images are very short, just 5 or 6 seconds long, with no tracking. |
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August 27 (Jupiter, Neptune, Juno) During September, the asteroid Juno and the planets Neptune and Jupiter will come to opposition, so on this image we see their locations with respect to each other and the constellations in the background. Curiously, they are all in different constellations, with Jupiter being in the corner of Cetus that planets often transgress, Neptune is in Aquarius, and Juno is still in Pisces prior to moving into the water bearer. |
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August 24 (Venus) The old crescent Moon is a day and a half from passing Venus low in the morning sky. |
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August 16 (Saturn) Saturn came to opposition three days ago, on August 13. Now it is repeating approximately what it did 29 years ago, in 1993, my last full year of living in Boulder, Colorado. Tunc Tezel of TWAN created an amazing montage of an entire Saturnian year spanning this same period. |
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August 11 (Moon) Tonight's full Moon was beautiful, shining low in the southeast just to the lower right (southwest) of Saturn. Here we see the view on the 11th, the day of full Moon, as well as the next day with a telephoto view of the full Moon cropped in to the exact position and size it occupied the evening before. |
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August 9 (Moon) The almost full Moon was resplendent in our clear but humid skies this August 9th, about half way between Antares to its west and Saturn to its east. Saturn is brightening considerably now, to magnitude +0.30, while by comparison, Antares shines at magnitude +1.06. The only thing spoiling our evening was the mosquitos LOL! |
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August 7 (Mercury) Mercury is still in the first half of a long evening apparition, which will carry it to a greatest elongation of 27° on 27 August, but find it at that time dimmer than this evening, as well as south of the ecliptic instead of being north of it. Now Mercury is magnitude -0.24, so it is actually brighter than any northern hemisphere star at the moment. |
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August 3 (Mars and Uranus) On the morning of Wednesday, August 3, 2022, I recorded Mars and Uranus in eastern Aries, with Mars now only six days away from entering Taurus, in which it will go through opposition in early December. Here we see Mars only two days beyond its conjunction with Uranus. Mars has now brightened to +0.18, almost to the brightness of Capella, and much brighter than Aldebaran. Although now very bright, it is still only 8.37" in diameter on this date. |
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