Podcaster: Shane and Chris
Title: Objects to Observe in the August 2021 Night Sky
Organization: Actual Astronomy
Link : https://actualastronomy.podbean.com/
Description: The Actual Astronomy Podcast presents Objects to Observe in the August 2021 Night Sky and places a focus on events to help you find the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus as well as what you can see on the Moon. With the planets getting higher we describe what we have seen through our telescopes to guide your own observations. We also talk about the Moon and when Lunar X, Cross and Lunar V are next visible and point telescope users to a resource for observing under smoky skies!
Bio: Shane and Chris are amateur astronomers who enjoy teaching astronomy classes and performing outreach where they help the eyes of the public to telescope eyepieces.
Today’s sponsor: Big thanks to our Patreon supporters this month: Rob Leeson, David Bowes, Brett Duane, Benett Bolek, Mary Ann, Frank Frankovic, Michael Freedman, Kim Hay, Steven Emert, Frank Tippin, Rani Bush, Jako Danar, Joseph J. Biernat, Nik Whitehead, Michael W, Cherry Wood, Steve Nerlich, Steven Kluth, James K Wood, Katrina Ince, Phyllis Foster, Don Swartwout, Barbara Geier, Steven Jansen
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Transcript:
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Chris Beckett: and welcome to the actual astronomy podcast my name is Chris and joining me is shane This is our hundred and 40th episode and we are amateur astronomers who love looking up at the night sky and this podcast is for anyone else who likes going out under the stars, how are you today shane.
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Shane Ludtke: I am pretty good Chris how we’re how are you.
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Chris Beckett: Doing pretty good just realized, when I was doing that that I forgot to put the entry in there, but I think I I think I add the did okay.
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Shane Ludtke: that’s almost a reflex now almost almost but I went to look just.
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Chris Beckett: For my own well being at my notes and they were not, they were not there, so so yeah so we’re going to talk with the objects to observe in the August 2021 night sky in this episode and the best event for the month, what do you think.
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Shane Ludtke: Well it’s it’s usually the showpiece event for August, and it really lines up well with the moon this year and that’s the proceed meteor shower.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah so we’ll talk a little bit more about that, but that’s one of the you know it’s it’s really the second best meteor shower of the year, but it, you know, for us, northern folks It really is probably the best one in terms of comfort because it’s not too cold outside.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and hopefully by the time there’s a meteor shower i’m able to have a shower we get the hot water heaters coming so.
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Chris Beckett: fingers crossed.
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Chris Beckett: Alright, so we’ll do a bit of a planetary around up first you know we’ll get to the the solar system last ooh we have mercury Venus and Mars all Austin twilight.
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Chris Beckett: So they’re they’re not really that visible right now, you can probably fair it, some of them up, but we’re we’re going for stuff that people can actually see relatively easily.
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Chris Beckett: But Jupiter and Saturn are coming into opposition this month, which is, which is pretty great because that means they’re going to make their best appearance for 2021.
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Chris Beckett: And it’s nice to see them in the summer they’re actually pretty high like.
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Chris Beckett: Considering like it’s summertime and they’re in a good part of the sky of we’re getting over into capricorn aquarius area.
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Chris Beckett: And that’s going to be good and viewable.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah you know that was one of the downsides last year, as they were a little a little too low in the sky, really, at least up here for any serious magnification.
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Shane Ludtke: But they’re getting slowly, you know higher in the sky each season here as they move into the fall and eventually winter.
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Shane Ludtke: But I mean i’m super excited for this month there’s a lot of really cool planetary stuff happening and just like what you mentioned like Saturn and Jupiter are you know starting to become observable a little earlier in the evening, which is awesome and super excited.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and we have uranus and Neptune coming up in the morning sky and they’re starting to.
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Chris Beckett: make their appearance high enough to to warrant telescopic observations on their own of, though, I think, without this smoke that many of us are experiencing it’s yeah it’s gonna be difficult to kind of ferret there was out of the of the merc.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah a lot of a lot of Canada and the United States is experiencing like well at least around here high altitude smoke in the atmosphere.
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Shane Ludtke: And really every single night for like almost three weeks now.
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Shane Ludtke: or right around that mark has been just you really can’t do any observing the only thing, maybe would be the moon, you know because we’ve talked about it, I think, last week, how the smoke actually kind of filters some of that brightness of the moon, which actually helps a little bit, but.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, other than that.
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Shane Ludtke: I guess the kicker too is is we really haven’t had much cloud at all it’s actually been clear and it would be great observing if it wasn’t.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah the smoke, unfortunately.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’m going with the I heard this somewhere, maybe not quite this way but i’m calling it ashtray skies.
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Shane Ludtke: Okay yeah that’s appropriate.
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Chris Beckett: it’s really.
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Chris Beckett: it’s really not great we’re fortunate though we’re not really having much, then we have ground level smoke and.
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Chris Beckett: The air seems relatively fine like like we haven’t had any like air quality or poor air quality alerts thing a couple days to get up a little bit high, but for the most part we’re at moderate or we’re sort of normal levels.
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Chris Beckett: I think we’re probably at levels that would be akin to.
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Chris Beckett: Like major cities, probably is is probably what our air quality is is like usually our air quality reading is like a one are very good, or maybe it might get a two or three on some some days but.
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Chris Beckett: I think the worst we’ve been it’s like a for maybe one day there was a five or something like that so not not the best but.
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Shane Ludtke: Certainly people there’s some areas that are much worse than us where they do have like air quality issues going on, so yeah we’re we’re fortunate in that regard.
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Chris Beckett: I hear that maybe some rain coming for some of the the the burning areas on on maybe Sunday or Monday or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: it’s a good long weekend so we’re chances of showers here we are in the middle of saskatchewan tonight so fingers crossed maybe we will we will get some but yeah sort of moving on to these planets.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah let’s get going.
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Chris Beckett: uranus on August 1 uranus is going to be 1.8 degrees away from the moon, which could be super cool because, even with the with the smoke in the air, if you put your binoculars.
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Chris Beckett: On the moon and kind of put them in the bottom left the brightest star that you’ll see sort of towards the upper middle right is.
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Chris Beckett: going to be uranus and that’s going to be in the in the morning sky i’m sort of reading this here, you know sort of early morning hours probably like around you know, maybe two o’clock in the morning, would be the best time to see it between maybe two and 4am.
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Chris Beckett: But yeah I mean that could be a good opportunity, I think that that uranus the moon get as close as 1.8 degrees, but I think from here, we see them, maybe a few degrees apart, or something like that.
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Shane Ludtke: Okay, well, and you know we’ve mentioned this in the past, like when they’re when when we have these alignments where the planets appear close to the moon.
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Shane Ludtke: The like not only is it kind of a neat thing to see through optics but it just makes it easier to find some of these planets and uranus is one of the planets that sometimes is a little challenging to locate.
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Shane Ludtke: Because it really does look like a star and in a lot of optics and it doesn’t take on like a globular shape the way.
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Shane Ludtke: Like Jupiter does and like kind of the.
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Shane Ludtke: weird shape that Saturn takes on with the Rings through binoculars so great opportunity to find uranus if you’ve never seen it before.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and then on August 2 we have saturn’s opposition.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah are you going to stay up for that to observe it.
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Chris Beckett: yeah I think i’ll probably take take a look at it so.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’m i’m pretty big into observing Saturn just just because you know it’s such a phenomenal planet, you know, to take to take a look at so humble yourself you’re going to take a look at it.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah I plan to unless the weather or skies don’t cooperate but yeah I love I love Saturn and you know Saturn is such a cool planet like.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s not as dynamic as Jupiter in terms of you know, the cloud patterns and you know the great red spot and how all of that stuff changes every season and even throughout the season.
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Shane Ludtke: Saturn is a little more static than that, although it has some variation I never get sick of looking at it and the very first time, each planetary season, that I look at Saturn.
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Shane Ludtke: I pretty much spend the whole night looking at it and just you know i’m always amazed at the rings and then the detail on Saturn is a little more subtle to pull out so you know it can be a little bit more challenging but I, you know I I really enjoy it.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so it’s going to be in capricornus which is sort of just you know it’s like an early autumn constellation really and it’s sort of you know quite visible.
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Chris Beckett: Around the midnight hour, because you know when planets are at opposition, it means that they’re rising pretty much at sunset and they’re setting pretty much at sunrise.
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Chris Beckett: So that means that, like best visibility is going to occur and best visibility will occur when their highest.
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Chris Beckett: planet is highest above the horizon so that’s going to happen, like sort of around midnight or or just prior so.
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Chris Beckett: You know people can kind of be on the on the lookout for that so yeah I look for that hopefully get a telescope out and and get focused on and I got some but lots of work on the go and lots of astronomy projects on the go here so so we’ll see exactly what happens.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah it can be a little challenging to balance everything.
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Shane Ludtke: If anybody is taking a look at Saturn that night also remember that you will probably be able to see some of its moons So if you identify what looks like stars around Saturn.
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Shane Ludtke: check your your planetarium software or websites on the Internet, to see if you identified any of the brighter moons around the planet.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so we have what’s the what’s the largest man that’s titan.
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Shane Ludtke: titan is often visible Rhea can be picked out I think dion there’s yeah there’s four or five depending on your aperture you know what you’re using you know there’ll be a varying amount of moons that you could see so.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah, but they are easily mistaken for stars yeah yeah.
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Chris Beckett: and sell it that’s the other one.
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Shane Ludtke: Yes.
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Chris Beckett: I can see Rhea will peyton Rhea death is DNA Enceladus.
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Chris Beckett: I get them all anyway, those are like the main ones, I think, like you said there’s five of them, that you can see, so yeah it’s pretty cool pretty cool so yeah should be good you’re going to try to make some observations there as well.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah absolutely okay what.
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Chris Beckett: What day is this second.
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Shane Ludtke: that’s gonna just wondering, that is, that a work day.
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Chris Beckett: Monday Sunday anyway.
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Shane Ludtke: Hopefully it’s Sunday what tomorrow.
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Shane Ludtke: it’ll be Monday yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: Monday
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Chris Beckett: Second, here we go, yes, so yeah that’ll be that’ll be pretty good yeah we’ll see what happens and then on August 8 we have the new moon.
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Shane Ludtke: Not just any new moon Chris but we’re gonna go out observing at a dark sky site new moon which we haven’t done in a long time so i’m pretty excited for this.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’m really sort of disappointed at the smoke because.
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Chris Beckett: You know kind of had this one on that in the works for a while and yeah we’re going to get together do some astronomy but.
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Chris Beckett: yeah with the smoke like I said, hopefully, these we get some of these rain systems that pastor one of them looks pretty substantial like you know astronomy is one thing, but you know.
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Chris Beckett: People plants, animals like people are suffering and in other areas we’re actually not it’s the years recently okay here.
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Chris Beckett: But we have had evacuees like in our city we’re that close to where these things are happening so.
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Chris Beckett: yeah hopefully hopefully the skies and everything improved because those fires get extinguished firmware and other and.
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Chris Beckett: And and everybody’s much happier and then of course we’ll have the the small side benefit of having clear and transparent guys but i’m not holding my breath for and, unfortunately, I think that we’re in for.
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Chris Beckett: Probably another few weeks, so this.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah I think you’re right, unfortunately.
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Shane Ludtke: And unfortunate for like the real reasons that you mentioned the astronomy is just a nice to have, but you know, maybe, things will work out if they don’t I guess we’ll have to target September for some observing.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and you know i’m getting ramped up for for an observing site so.
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Chris Beckett: yeah by by September I should be should be good to go there and August 9 the next night there’s a double shadow transit.
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Chris Beckett: On Jupiter of it, you know and that’s when the moons of Jupiter pass in front of its disk and they cause these little sort of looked like little black circles to appear in those of the shadows of of the galleon satellites.
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Chris Beckett: starts when Jupiter sense and saskatchewan so we’re not really going to see it, but should be visible from Hawaii and in Japan and we say that because you know, we do have listeners sort of from from all over so yeah people in other locations, should be able to see in.
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Shane Ludtke: This, this is a decent month to for shadow transits on Jupiter so we’ll mention, I think, at least one more.
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Shane Ludtke: And these are always cool things to observe, you know again i’ve seen kind of like my comment about Saturn i’ve seen Saturn a lot, but I still love going back to it.
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Shane Ludtke: i’ve seen the shadow transits before but they’re still really neat to observe and you know, first of all, just see if you can identify them and for this you’ll need a telescope I don’t believe any binoculars will.
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Shane Ludtke: will resolve this for you, but even modest apertures like you don’t need a huge telescope to see this like I think a three inch.
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Shane Ludtke: Or would show that quite.
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Shane Ludtke: Easy yes yeah I mean I mean.
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Chris Beckett: Even my $80 80 millimeter F five refractor.
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Chris Beckett: is good enough that like I always like to use the example of my cousin who’s.
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Chris Beckett: who’s a very observant person I should put it that way, but he’s he’s I don’t think it’s any inaccuracies not really an amateur astronomer though he’s he’s observed with me lots.
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Chris Beckett: I was set up one night and he probably from a telescope only doesn’t maybe two dozen times Max at that time anyhow, and he, like walked up looked at me he’s like oh there’s a shadow transit happening, but he recognized it for what it was.
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Chris Beckett: Without any without any prompting or anything so yeah like you said, with a three inch you’ll have no problem, seeing if somebody is.
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Chris Beckett: Doing lots of observing I think like a 16 millimeter so you would definitely be able to pull them but i’ve definitely seen them in my 60 so.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and they’re fun event to observe so check it out, if you can.
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Chris Beckett: yeah very good, then we have sort of our main event for the month the the proceed meteor shower which which really takes place over over a number of nights and i’ve kind of marked it here is the 11th 12th and 13th of August, because and, in fact, you know you can see, it probably even.
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Shane Ludtke: Even now we’re record oh yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah like it’s.
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Shane Ludtke: Usually like two weeks on either side of the peak for a meteor shower you’re going to see increased activity in the sky if you’re out at night looking up yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: And, and this.
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Shane Ludtke: like this year coincides quite nicely with the new moon, so you know the moon can because of its brightness can actually kind of take away from a meteor shower because you may not see as many of the fainter meteors because the moon, is just so darn bright.
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Shane Ludtke: So this year it’s really you know it’s a it’s looking like a good year for the perseids in the perseids is one of the more active meteor showers that we have each year.
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Chris Beckett: yeah Have you ever seen like a like a big outburst from the proceeds.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah many, many years ago, before I was really into amateur astronomy I was out with friends, and it was just mesmerizing just huge helpers do it was almost like you know I won’t say raining but.
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Shane Ludtke: It was like non stop meteors for a period of time.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’ve seen it one sort of almost like.
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Chris Beckett: an ideal situation, so I went to the Mount koba star Party I guess it was about six or seven years ago, or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: and often they can be plagued by forest fire smoke because they’re really in the in the fire zone.
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Chris Beckett: But that you’re there was there was absolutely no forest fires, and it was it was pretty good conditions.
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Chris Beckett: And I driven there I sort of had missed i’m not really good at judging the driving distances over here because i’m not i’m not from these parts and.
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Chris Beckett: I kind of misjudged so we end up getting there basically at sunset and it had been a very long drive like a I don’t know like a 1230 in the car kind of thing.
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Chris Beckett: And I was like i’m not going to observe i’m just gonna i’m just going to sit out, and you know.
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Chris Beckett: make some friends, I didn’t know anybody there so just going to wander around chatting with people and.
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Chris Beckett: I was going to look through some telescopes and I took my reclining chair and we set up, you know head to set up right at the summit so set up and.
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Chris Beckett: And just my chair and kind of had started talking to people, I was sort of like just sitting in my chair using my binoculars because they really know anybody that well and.
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Chris Beckett: After a while I was like there’s there’s a lot of meteors so I kind of you know.
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Chris Beckett: kind of mentioned to people like boy there’s gonna be a lot of meteor so a couple people started kind of.
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Chris Beckett: hanging out and just sort of sitting back watching for meteors too and yeah all of a sudden, the skies like you said kind of open up, and it was almost like raining for for a period of about maybe maybe 15 or 20 minutes and.
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Chris Beckett: I don’t know how many we had hundreds anyway.
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Shane Ludtke: Probably so yeah so so the perseids typically will produce somewhere in the neighborhood went during its peak.
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Shane Ludtke: About 50 to 100 meteors per hour is not uncommon now, these things are tough to predict, so you never really know.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: But that’s an awful lot of activity, and then the other thing that perseids are popular for is producing what’s known as a.
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Shane Ludtke: fireball and a fireball is just like a.
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Shane Ludtke: Real bright meteor that sometimes leaves a bit of a trail behind that lasts for a few seconds and slowly fades but yeah fireballs can like if you’re under a dark sky fireballs can almost light it up like daytime depending on proximity there they can be quite phenomenal to see.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah so it was probably like dozens, if not hundreds, but it feels like a lot when you’re used to sitting out and just seeing like one once in a while.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah absolutely no I know exactly what you mean.
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Chris Beckett: Alright So how do you like to observe meteor showers like do you have any sort of tips and tricks for just like like your own observations of them are.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah sure so get out of that you have to get out of light pollution, you know if you if you’re under light polluted skies this just is not worth probably attempting, in my opinion.
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Shane Ludtke: So you don’t you know the darker the sky, the better you don’t need the darkest skies for this, but definitely get away from lights.
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Shane Ludtke: bring a comfortable chair, one that kind of allows you to like.
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Shane Ludtke: You like allowed her to kind of lean back and reclined so that you’re you can comfortably just sit there lay down and look up at the sky.
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Shane Ludtke: Sometimes you know, bringing a blanket or sleeping bag, is a good idea.
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Shane Ludtke: never underestimate how cold it gets even if the temperatures on the weather forecast appear warm never underestimate how cold you get not moving when the temperatures, are you know getting you know to their nighttime lows.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah so a sleeping bag can make it a lot more comfortable.
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Shane Ludtke: And really just look up at the night sky now the perseids have their name proceed because they seem to emanate from perseus so you want to maybe look in that direction.
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Shane Ludtke: But really as long as you’re looking up, you will see meteors that night we’re or from now until we really probably the end of August.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and it’s not it’s not like super important to identify perseus but, but if you wind up it’ll be in the thread the northeastern part of your screen if you’re in the northern hemisphere and and let’s see it’s really just below cassiopeia, which is the.
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Chris Beckett: w so.
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Chris Beckett: That that’s sort of the general area, but you really don’t have to necessarily identify the constellation perseus in order to go in and enjoy these meteors.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah great point in fact it’s the, the only way i’ve ever been able to tell like where these meteors originate from in terms of constellation is when somebody has like photographic images that they’ve stacked.
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Shane Ludtke: And right see like 20 of them.
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Shane Ludtke: And, and then you sort of notice that all of those streaks are sort of coming from us somewhat common point in the sky, but otherwise like visually it’s really hard to tell.
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Chris Beckett: yeah i’m kind of there with you on that, but yeah it’s pretty cool to see to see quite a few you know pretty pretty good anything else to add in the perseids.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no it’s just again, this is a great year for it, so if you know, if you like, meteors or you’ve never seen a meteor shower before try to make plans to see this one.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and hopefully in two weeks from now, and when that’s occurring we won’t have any more smoke.
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Shane Ludtke: I don’t know yes.
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Chris Beckett: we’ll find out all right August 15 we have the first quarter moon in a triple shadow transit on Jupiter that we miss out again here in central North America.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah so further further West so again, probably Hawaii Japan.
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Shane Ludtke: You know, and so forth there.
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Shane Ludtke: Have a better shot at this and a triple shadow transit now shadow transits on Jupiter are very common, but the triple shadow transits are are certainly a little more rare and pretty cool to observe to.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah pretty neat so yeah I really like like observing their shadow transitive if I can I will always set up a telescope and try to take a look, but yeah this one.
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Chris Beckett: be visible, unfortunately, so I was, I was looking in the REC observers calendar and on August 16 the Lunar straight while is visible and I was thinking didn’t somebody fill or somebody do an observation of the street wall and send it to us.
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Shane Ludtke: Ah, I think, so I know I talked about it once.
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Chris Beckett: You yeah.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah.
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Chris Beckett: I know there’s a few people talking about it recently, so my apologies if I get get it wrong.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah no worries but it’s it’s a super cool thing like I there’s a number of these effects on the moon, like the Lunar X and the Lunar V.
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Shane Ludtke: That are sort of like you know shadow effects or whatever to observe and the Lunar straight wall is sort of both you know it’s a bit of a shadow effect, but it also is a physical feature.
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Shane Ludtke: But like a photograph you know you sort of see that it’s not a perfectly straight line.
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Shane Ludtke: But when I see it, visually it’s incredible how it just looks like somebody took a ruler, and a black ink pen and drew a line through a real bright spot on the moon, and it really, really stands out, so this is another cool thing to see if you’ve never seen it before.
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Shane Ludtke: So on the 16th of August check it out, this is one that would be pretty hard to miss what I might try to do so i’ve only seen it like using my telescope because typically if i’m out that’s what i’m using.
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Shane Ludtke: yep i’m curious if binoculars would show this like my 12 by 36 is not sure i’m kind of doubting it but i’d like to try.
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Chris Beckett: Their challenge yourself.
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Yes.
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Chris Beckett: Very cool isn’t an anomaly on the spot, but do I remember like when you’re talking about before did you mentioned it’s like an escarpment or something like that.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah I think it’s an escarpment that at certain times you know, is really in a like in the perfect shadow for us to observe and it’s a very long feature.
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Shane Ludtke: And with the blackness of the shadow it just sort of smooth things out and it looks like like I say like just a beautifully straight black line.
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Chris Beckett: i’ll try i’ll try for people should know we our notes are very thin so we just put this date this thing and then we just talk about them so.
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Shane Ludtke: I always feel bad sometimes i’m like shane what is this and.
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Chris Beckett: He has nothing to work with.
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Shane Ludtke: Oh well just just keep it to things I know that’s.
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Chris Beckett: Good stuff okay and yeah I got it I think i’ve seen this before, in fact I I think you’ve shown this to me, but I don’t know that i’ve actually looked it up myself I, to be frank, I find the moon, really.
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Chris Beckett: Challenging to observe like you know don’t get me wrong, I have no trouble finding the moon when it’s up.
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Shane Ludtke: But that’s good.
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Chris Beckett: Actually, I always I always feel kind of funny thing, but actually finding some of the stuff on the moon, it can be a bit tricky so.
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Chris Beckett: Any any sort of tips and tricks there for people to get going.
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Chris Beckett: Making some early lunar observation, especially considering the smoke and it may actually be the only thing that you find and it may be difficult to actually the moon.
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Chris Beckett: If you have a lot of smoke.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah well and and I totally agree with you, observing the moon, can be a challenging feat, because, like when you’re trying to identify certain craters or surface features.
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Shane Ludtke: there’s so much detail to see in so many craters that it you kind of get lost in it, and you know the We obviously need like a fairly detailed moon map or lunar map to.
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Shane Ludtke: That labels everything that’s that you’re looking at and then you know started a big feature that’s pretty easy to identify and then start you know.
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Shane Ludtke: In a way, not star hopping but maybe maybe crater hopping to where you want to end up but yeah it can be challenging for sure, because.
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Shane Ludtke: Because again it just there’s so much detail and some of it kind of looks the same and then, if you’re you know refractor guys, like us, and you have to do the left, right reversal things get even more complicated.
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Chris Beckett: yeah.
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Chris Beckett: yeah anyway start at that big crater the Galileo drew.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah that’s.
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Chris Beckett: What he was seeing there but yeah that’s for sure alright August 20 and Jupiter is that opposition in capricorn.
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Chris Beckett: And Saturn is four degrees north of the moon, so you know here we go, we have Saturn opposition on the second only a few days from now, and then we have Jupiter on the 20th at opposition’s so yeah pretty good month for viewing these gas giants.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and really like you know Mars is is a planet that can tease you with some detail, and you know, under the right conditions, you can see an awful lot on Mars, but.
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Shane Ludtke: Jupiter and Saturn are really the prime planets for that every season or every year in terms of being able to see all kinds of detail, so this is an exciting time for me.
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Shane Ludtke: i’m excited that we’re finally getting some darker nights you know the.
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Shane Ludtke: Every every night gets a little bit longer now until December 21 so i’m loving that because August really marks the start of our real deep sky observing yeah now we really get into it, but this year, you know August is also marking, you know Jupiter and Saturn.
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Shane Ludtke: Observing season for me anyway because they’re just visible earlier in the night, so that just more accessible.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and and that night, maybe only Jupiter Saturn and Mars or Jupiter Saturn and the moon will be visible maybe a little bit, the only things you can see, I know I was at when dixie a few stars, but.
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Chris Beckett: But I was able to take a look at these three things even even with the smoke that we have.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah and you know we’ve talked about the smoke, being a good filter for the moon, sometimes filtering Jupiter is advantageous because Jupiter is super bright, especially if you’re using.
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Shane Ludtke: Like a large aperture telescope like you know, a 10 or 12 inch or larger.
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Shane Ludtke: You want to you want to knock down the brightness of Jupiter because the its own brightness will wash out some of those like surface wash and say surface features, I guess cloud features.
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Shane Ludtke: On Jupiter and when you tone down the brightness you can sometimes see more so, you know, sometimes a smoke helps you there too.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and so on the 20th there when you’re observing Jupiter you can also take a look at Saturn which is just gonna be 40 degrees north or above the moon.
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Chris Beckett: So that’s going to be visible in a in a binocular or really low power wide field telescopic field like I know with my eight millimeter F five.
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Chris Beckett: I get a thing around like a six degree field of view or something so easily fits in there, but most binoculars will give you at least a five degree field of view so.
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Chris Beckett: be able to see Saturn just about the moon, and I love Those sort of moon and planet pairings in the sky there they’re always just super cool to look at.
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Shane Ludtke: So amazing yeah and I, you know I give I give bonus points when saturn’s involved seeing the moon and Saturn together, you know with the rings and the craters and you know it’s just you’re overwhelmed with detail and phenomenal beauty, you know just it’s it’s an amazing sight to see.
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Chris Beckett: Well, get ready for more bonus points on August 22 chain, because.
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Chris Beckett: we’re terrible then before.
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Chris Beckett: degrees north of the.
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moon.
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Shane Ludtke: Why not just any moon holy smokes.
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Chris Beckett: Oh yeah that’s right.
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Shane Ludtke: it’s blue moon.
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The see.
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Shane Ludtke: The seasonal blue moon.
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Shane Ludtke: don’t.
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Chris Beckett: know, we had five in the spring, I think, but five blooms.
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Chris Beckett: don’t know what it was, but every moon in the spring, was a blue moon or something like that.
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Chris Beckett: I think it was like.
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Chris Beckett: March, April and May all had blueprints or something.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, because I think the media was this when they were basically saying like if there’s two full moons in one month, the second one is a blue moon.
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Chris Beckett: I think Oh, this is the business of it when it’s closer and it.
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Chris Beckett: You know, as long as it’s closer than it’s for this.
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Chris Beckett: Point I think they were calling in a blue.
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Chris Beckett: moon or something so anyway.
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Chris Beckett: they’re all looking like lunar eclipses now look like just with the smoke it’s all pretty there the moon is pretty red.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah definitely not Gray.
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No.
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Shane Ludtke: No, so the seasonal full moon here are seasonal blue moon i’m going to modify read your notes.
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Chris Beckett: Sure go ahead.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah so noted, as the third full moon in a season, that will contain for full moons, this is the original scientific definition according to Fred espenak yep.
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Chris Beckett: This one actually is.
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Chris Beckett: A seasonal blue moons are sort of like an original blue moon.
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Chris Beckett: So I just thought I thought that was kind of neat so that this one actually.
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Chris Beckett: Would would be a blue moon, and if we weren’t calling pretty much anything a blue moon ironically I don’t think it’s actually ever even heard it being mentioned as a blue moon that media so far so it’s very strange that’s kind of like the original meaning of a blue moon.
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Chris Beckett: You know, has sort of morphed into something else, and now, like the that that sort of original condition is actually set up and going to occur, and no one’s gonna actually.
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Shane Ludtke: that’s funny Oh well.
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Chris Beckett: Oh well, Oh well, so there we have Jupiter and sitting there just four degrees north of the moon on that night so that’ll be that’ll be pretty cool because Jupiter is just a couple days past opposition or serve its full.
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Chris Beckett: Full full sort of phase night and yeah it’s going to be rate in that same sort of five degree binocular field, or maybe a super low power richfield telescope field of view.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah pretty neat to see our moon in conjunction, or like in the same field of view as the galilean moons as well, but that’ll be a nice observation.
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Chris Beckett: yeah so you could actually see five moons.
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Chris Beckett: yeah your Jupiter.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah one of them, really is.
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Chris Beckett: No, no, not that I think there’s that fifth moon of Jupiter mo mo anyway, that was discovered by he Bernard the lady T 90s, I remember the story on that.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no.
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Chris Beckett: He he was working at mount look Observatory sort of sadly enough speaking of fires bernards cottage that he lived in while he was there burned down, I think, last year, the year before and.
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Chris Beckett: In a fire there unfortunately yeah i’ve been there actually number of years ago, when I was working in Silicon Valley.
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Chris Beckett: But he’d been arguing, I think, with the Observatory director to get time on on the 36 inch refractor that’s there.
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Chris Beckett: I think that was the instrument anyway, anyway, so he eventually get time with the telescope and.
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Chris Beckett: I want to say it was like the first thing, maybe wasn’t the first name of my head, it makes better service first night but.
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Chris Beckett: In you know within one of the first sessions that he was he was using an instrument, he actually discovered this this fifth moon of.
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Chris Beckett: Jupiter I think was the last one last one in the solar system discovered visually I could be wrong on that, but I think that’s that’s a story anyway P cool.
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Chris Beckett: Interesting anyway, you can’t see i’m with you, with your I unless you have 36 months Clark telescope on top of a mountain top.
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Shane Ludtke: Unfortunately, just 36 inches say.
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Chris Beckett: Something I think.
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Chris Beckett: Maybe maybe you could do it i’m sure somebody out there is going to send us a photograph taken with an eight inch mcafee green or something but.
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Chris Beckett: But seeing it visually I think I think you need, I think I I know somebody who start with a 17 inch telescope from there from the roof top Observatory, but yeah that’s the only person I know who’s seen it all right.
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Chris Beckett: August ends kind of the way it starts with uranus in the moon really close together in the sky, there are about 1.5 degrees.
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Chris Beckett: Part I think they’re actually fairly close here, I think we see them both three degrees apart in our skies, so we sort of started the month I think on August first.
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Chris Beckett: With uranus in the moon just about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit another 1.5 and hear their their fear of the close, so you can actually.
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Chris Beckett: Try to track your understand it will be sort of above and to the left or to the North East of the moon on that he put the moon, in your field of view the bright star above into the left is going to be uranus.
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Shane Ludtke: Very good, so two opportunities to easily locate uranus in August.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and then on August 30 we have the last quarter moon I see you’re highlighting this thing that I.
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Shane Ludtke: Well i’m i’m looking this up, I have no idea what this is.
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Chris Beckett: So I haven’t seen this before either so, so I think i’ve mentioned this before i’m taking on the the observers calendar editorial ship.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, i’m going to be a volunteer editor for the rsc observers calendar.
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Chris Beckett: And as as part of that i’ve been following things along and paying a little bit more attention to what’s in the calendar, and I was looking at August and there’s this thing called the Lunar curtis X or sometimes called the curtis cross.
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Chris Beckett: Which is visible it’s going to be visible on the 31st and it occurs around the last quarter, so this is going to be visible in Canada and I looked at that briefly.
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Chris Beckett: Before we were recording tonight and I I you know see people having had observed it, but of course it’s it’s a little bit further along right so you’re going to need to stay up.
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Chris Beckett: well past midnight, in order to in order to see because you’re getting into that last quarter phase or get up early.
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Chris Beckett: In the morning, I suppose, and I was like there’s there’s something shane’s gonna like because we don’t have any break comments this month, so I had to I had to find something special for you to look out.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, I love these like these shadow plays on the moon it’s super cool i’ve never heard of this one and.
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Shane Ludtke: As I was looking this up, Chris so on the same night, so the curtis Cross is like you know right along the terminator so basically everything we’ve ever said or anything you’ve ever done in terms of looking for the Lunar X same thing applies here it’s right along the terminator.
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Shane Ludtke: And it looks like there’s also another cross or another X visible that night so it’s the Tyco cross.
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Shane Ludtke: Which all just kind of follow the terminator along I will i’ll send you a link here, Chris and all right we’ll put it in the show notes, because every month we like when we do this episode which is a monthly thing.
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Shane Ludtke: We post these show notes on our website actual astronomy.com just as a reference in case anybody is interested in some of the details we’ve talked about so we will include this link as well.
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Chris Beckett: Okay there.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah look that up but anyway, this link has a picture that shows the curtis cross but also this Tyco cross so yeah if if people are interested in a new lunar thing to look for peers to.
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Shane Ludtke: Luna is to look for.
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Chris Beckett: yeah wasn’t sure how they had they knew there must be things that people sort of run across in the past but.
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Chris Beckett: But anyhow yeah those those could be kind of interesting and I was also thinking well if I if I sure hope or smoke these guys don’t continue for more than another month that would.
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Chris Beckett: That would just be really not very good at all for everybody, but I thought, if if they do that could be something to.
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Chris Beckett: To look at, because I know i’ve been looking at the moon, a little bit and certainly yeah you can do some some decent lunar observing right now for sure, even even with the skies in the in the ashtray sheep that they’re in, unfortunately.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure yeah and you know the moon just has so much to look at so certainly it’s it’s not a bad constellation at all, you know the moon is is something that we probably don’t spend enough time talking about.
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Shane Ludtke: And, and I know I don’t spend enough time observing it to be perfectly honest, but it’s it’s an incredible thing to look at through any kind of optical aid.
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Chris Beckett: And so I was kind of poke around just just to see.
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Chris Beckett: What what other sources were recommending for for observing you know around around this time and particularly because of because of the smoke.
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Chris Beckett: So I thought, what we talked mostly about the planets in the moon and and in these sort of things most things are going to be visible, though I mean if the smoke is really bad it will impact seeing the the meteor showers.
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Chris Beckett: And then I saw that you know, we have no affiliation, but I would love to sky and telescope as a really great article on double star observing under smoky skies.
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Chris Beckett: And I just thought that was fantastic you know and i’m a big fan of scale is currently not a subscriber, but I have been in the past.
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Chris Beckett: And I keep meaning I keep saying every month I get to subscribe again because during the pandemic I haven’t been to the.
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Chris Beckett: shopping centers as much and usually what I was doing is, I think it costs about the same to buy it off the shelf, as it does to.
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Chris Beckett: get a subscription when you’re when you’re outside of the states which is fine, so usually what I would do is just buy it on the shelf, just when we’re.
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Chris Beckett: doing our grocery shopping or something like that, but then because of the pandemic actually haven’t haven’t been doing that I keep thinking Oh, I really I really do miss it everything’s kind telescope is a is a great resource for amateur astronomers.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah there’s always interesting articles and really useful tools there.
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Chris Beckett: yeah and they always come up with stuff like this, like you know, I was really I thought it was pretty cool article I read it.
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Chris Beckett: You know, we don’t have to go through through this now, I thought I thought you would find it interesting I think listeners would find it interesting so yeah hopefully hopefully they keep it up there, and hopefully sky and telescope keeps up the great work.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah yeah this is awesome very timely love the title dazzling double stars for compromise skies.
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Chris Beckett: yeah yeah good work on them to kind of get out there, and you know it’s just sort of it was exactly what I was looking from like you know who who started doing doing the homework and.
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Chris Beckett: You know, getting something interesting together for people to to go and observe so so I enjoyed that article and and they put up for you know the magazine yet to buy, but the articles that article was free it was good good article finders charts and everything so good on them so.
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Chris Beckett: Anyway, I will.
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Chris Beckett: Go ahead.
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Shane Ludtke: Well, I just wanted to mention will link to this as well.
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Shane Ludtke: As our show notes so again if you’re interested in this article check out the show notes that actual astronomy.com.
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Chris Beckett: yeah well shame that sort of all we have in our in our objects to observe in the August night sky episode not sure if you have anything you would like to add, certainly, I would love to hear more from you, if you wish to share more.
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Shane Ludtke: No, no, this is good, Chris like I said already i’m August is one of my favorite observing months because it means darker longer longer durations of darkness and.
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Shane Ludtke: You know this year’s is even better, because we have Jupiter and Saturn becoming prominent earlier evening objects to observe so.
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Shane Ludtke: This is great.
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Shane Ludtke: I can’t wait.
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Chris Beckett: It stuff and yeah looking forward to getting out and doing some server with you even even if we’re just looking at planets and and hanging out that’ll be enough.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah for sure.
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Chris Beckett: Alright well thanks so much.
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Shane Ludtke: yeah thanks Chris.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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