Skywatch Line for Friday, August 30, through Sunday, September 1, written by Sam Salem

This is Dudley Observatory’s Skywatch Line for Friday, August 30, through Sunday, September 1, written by Sam Salem.

On Friday, Sun rises at 6:18am and sets at 7:32pm; Moon rises at 2:21am and sets at 6:19pm.

On the Friday Morning, in the east shortly before sunrise, the waning crescent Moon will hang near the twin stars of Gemini, Pollux and Castor. The bright star Procyon of Canis Minor the lesser dog is also nearby. See earthshine glowing on the Moon. That’s light reflected off the Earth.

On Saturday, the thin waning crescent Moon will lie near Pollux and Castor. Pollux is a bit brighter and golden in color. Castor appears white. The Moon will be close to the faint Beehive star cluster. They’ll rise a few hours before sunrise. Try to catch them before dawn. In a dark sky, the Beehive is an easy target with binoculars. Through binoculars, you will see a few dozen of the 1,000 or so stars that are members of the Beehive.

Cassiopeia is now high in the northeast after dark, its W pattern tilting up. And below it, starry Perseus is reaching up. The highest part of Perseus includes the wintry Double Cluster. To find it, look back to Cassiopeia. Counting down from the top, note the third segment of the W. Continue that segment downward by twice its length. You’re looking for what seems like a small spot of enhanced Milky Way glow. Binoculars or a finder-scope will help you detect the Double Cluster.

As dawn brightens on Sunday morning, look east-northeast for the hairline crescent Moon with Mercury 4° to its right. Binoculars will help in the brightening sky.

Mercury barely peeps through the glare of sunrise. It’s still quite faint. Try looking for it just above the east-northeast horizon starting about 30 or 40 minutes before sunrise. Use binoculars. It’s still only magnitude +1.3, but next week it will brighten fast.

Venus, still very low in the west-southwest in bright twilight, has been creeping up very slightly day by day, while springtime Spica, barely a hundredth as bright, is finally sinking away for the year. Venus is becoming slightly more visible week by week. Look for it due west starting 20 or 30 minutes after sunset. Binoculars will help.

Mars and Jupiter, magnitudes +0.7 and –2.3, respectively, in the constellation of Taurus, continue pulling apart from each other in the early-morning sky. Watch for bright Jupiter to rise in the east-northeast around midnight daylight-saving time. Mars, much fainter, follows roughly a half hour later, glowing to Jupiter’s lower left.

On Saturday morning the two planets will be 8° apart. By the first sign of dawn, they’re high toward the east-southeast, with Mars still to Jupiter’s lower left. Mars-like Aldebaran shines to Jupiter’s right. Orion sparkles below.

Saturn, magnitude +0.7, south of the Circlet of Pisces, glows low in the east as evening twilight fades away. It’s lower right of the Great Square of Pegasus, which is balancing on one corner.

Our Milky Way galaxy is a vast collection of hundreds of billions of stars. We’re not in the galaxy’s center, but instead about 2/3s of the way out from center, in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms. You can gaze toward the galaxy’s center in a dark sky. The band of the Milky Way gets broader and brighter in the direction toward the center. In that direction, you’ll find a famous asterism, the Teapot, in the constellation Sagittarius. The Teapot’s pattern is distinctive. Once you spot it, it’s easy to imagine as an earthly teapot. You’ll find it southward on August evenings from the Northern Hemisphere. Even if your sky isn’t dark, once you find the Teapot, you can use it to guide your mind’s eye to the star-rich center of our galaxy. The Milky Way runs from Sagittarius in the south, up and left across Aquila and through the big Summer Triangle very high, and on down through Cassiopeia to Perseus low in the north-northeast. A supermassive black hole lies at the galaxy’s heart. It has some 4 million times the mass of our Sun. It’s called Sagittarius A* (Sagittarius A-Star).