08/12/2015 – Ephemeris – One ringed planet and a sky full of meteors

Ephemeris for Wednesday, August 12th.  The Sun rises at 6:41.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 12 minutes, setting at 8:53.   The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 5:49 tomorrow morning.

Lets take a look for the bright planets for this week.  Our brightest evening planets Venus and Jupiter are leaving the evening sky in the west.  Venus is 3 days from inferior conjunction with the Sun.  Saturn is in the south-southwest in the evening twilight.  It can be spotted just to the right of the constellation of Scorpius the scorpion and its bright red star Antares below and right of it.  Even small telescopes can see Saturn’s rings.  The Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak overnight tonight.  Your back yard is a fine spot to view the meteors, or for dark skies, I’ll be leading an all night meteor watch at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Dune Climb if it’s clear.  I’ll be there by 9 p.m. and it will be dark enough by 10:30.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Saturn and the summer Zodiacal constellations in the south at 10 p.m. August 12, 2015. Created using Stellarium.

Saturn through a telescope at 10 p.m. on August 12, 2015. Created using Stellarium.

Next week Wednesday we will also turn to the morning sky looking for Mars and awaiting Venus’ grand entrance into the dawn skies.

All-sky meteor charts from yesterday’s post

“PerR” is the Perseid radiant.

11 p.m. August 12, 2015. Created using Bob Moler’s LookingUp program for Windows.

2 a.m. August 13, 2015. Previewing autumn stars. Created using Bob Moler’s LookingUp program for Windows.

5 a.m. August 13, 2015. Good morning Orion! Created using Bob Moler’s LookingUp program for Windows.