Page 75 - All About Space 68 - 2017 UK

STARGAZER
This month’s planets

Venus 04:00 BST on 18 August Mercury 06:30 BST on 9 September

LEO CANCER
GEMINI ORION ERIDANUS MINOR Venus MONOCEROS
Moon
Ceres URSA
MAJOR
Venus LEO Mercury HYDRA
Mars
MONOCEROS

NE E SE NE E SE

Constellation: Gemini to Leo lantern-bright in the east before dawn. Constellation: Leo days after, drifting past bright Regulus
Magnitude: -4 The morning of 18 August, Venus will Magnitude: 0.2 — coming within two Moon widths
AM/PM: AM lie to the left of a beautiful waning AM/PM: AM of the star — and then approaching
Wandering restlessly from Gemini crescent Moon, and if skies are clear Mercury won’t be visible properly and passing Mars. On 12 September,
through Cancer and then into Leo, between 31 August and 3 September, until early September, highest in the Mercury will lie almost exactly
the world called ‘Earth’s Twin’ will you’ll be able to spot Venus drifting sky before dawn on 9 September. It halfway between Regulus and Mars,
be a striking ‘Morning Star’, blazing beneath the Beehive Cluster (M44). will have plenty of company in the which will be shining to its lower left.

Jupiter 19:30 BST on 25 August
Constellation: Virgo
Magnitude: -1.8
AM/PM: PM
VIRGO
As summer draws to a close, Jupiter
continues to dominate the western sky
LEO
after sunset. In mid-August the largest
Moon
LIBRA planet in our Solar System – big enough to
hold a thousand Earths – sets an hour and
Jupiter a half after the Sun has dropped behind the
horizon, but Jupiter’s best performances on
the sky’s great stage are behind it, and it
will be lower and a little harder to see with
each night that passes. By mid-September
HYDRA Jupiter will be setting only an hour after
the Sun, sinking into the twilight, and we’ll
lose it not long afterwards. Before that you
can look out for a beautiful crescent Moon,
S SW W glowing with Earthshine, hanging above
Jupiter during dusk on 25 August.

Mars 05:30 BST on 10 August Uranus 23:30 BST on 13 August

Venus
Ceres
TRIANGULUM
URSA PISCES
LYNX GEMINI
MAJOR
ARIES
CANCER CANIS Uranus CETUS
MINOR
LEO MINOR Moon
Mars

N NE E NE E SE
Constellation: Cancer to Leo both of which will be in the same Constellation: Pisces hard to see without aparatus. It looks
Magnitude: 1.8 part of the sky. By mid-September Magnitude: 5.8 like a green star in binoculars, and in
AM/PM: AM Mars will lie to the lower left of that AM/PM: PM a telescope as a small, pale green disc.
With a magnitude of 1.8 it will be pair, awaiting a ‘close encounter of the Uranus could be forgiven for having If you need extra help, on 13 August
slightly brighter than Polaris, the planetary kind’ with Mercury in the an inferiority complex; even though Uranus lies five degrees to the upper
Pole Star, but will be outshone by the third week of the month, seeing them it’s visible to the naked eye, today’s left of the Moon, on 9 September, they
bright Regulus and brighter Mercury, less than a Moon’s width apart. light polluted skies mean it is very will be seven degrees apart.

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