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The Night Sky August 2020


Compiled by Ian Morison




This page, updated monthly, will let you know some of the things that you can look out for in the night sky.  It lists the phases of the Moon, where you will see the naked-eye planets and describes some of the prominent constellations in the night sky during the month.


New(ish)

The author's: Astronomy Digest

which, over time, will provide useful and, I hope, interesting articles for all amateur astronomers.   A further aim is to update and add new material to link with the books recently published by Cambridge University Press and which are described on the home page of the digest.   It now includes over 70 illustrated articles.



Image of the Month

Neowise

Noctilucent Clouds and Comet Neowise
Image Copyright: David Tolliday


In last months 'Night Sky' I suggested that you look out for Noctilucent Clouds.   In this months spectactular image, taken in the late evening on the 9th of July by my colleague David Tolliday, they are visible but, also, joined by Comet Neowise!   The camera was overlooking Manchester, hence the attractive glow towards the bottom of the image.   At the same time, a higher resolution image was taken by the author from higher up in the Cheshire hills which showed the bifurcation of the tail.

Neowise
Closeup image of Comet Neowise. (IM)

Highlights of the Month


August - a great month to view Jupiter.

Jupiter
Jupiter imaged by Damian Peach

This is a great month to observe Jupiter which will be visible during all the hours of darkness.   It lies in the southernmost part of the ecliptic in Sagittarius and, sadly, will only reach an elevations of ~16 degrees when crossing the meridian.   An interesting observation is that the Great Red Spot appears to be diminishing in size.   At the beginning of the last century it spanned 40,000 km across but now appears to be only ~16,500 km across - less than half the size.   It used to be said that 3 Earths could fit within it, but now it is only one.   The shrinking rate appears to be accelerating and observations indicate that it is now reducing in size by ~580 miles per year.   Will it eventually disappear?

  The features seen in the Jovian atmosphere have been changing quite significantly over the last few years - for a while the South Equatorial Belt vanished completely (as seen in Damian's image) but has now returned to its normal wide state.   The diagram on right shows the main Jovian features as imaged by the author at the beginning of December 2012.

The image by Damian Peach was taken with a 14 inch telescope in Barbados where the seeing can be particularly good.   This image won the "Astronomy Photographer of the Year" competition in 2011.

See more of Damian Peach's images: Damian Peaches Website"





Jovian Features
Features in Jupiter's atmosphere - December 2013.




August: Look for the Great Red Spot on Jupiter

Great Red Spot
Observe the Great Red Spot
Image: NASA

This list gives the best late evening times during August to observe the Great Red Spot which should then lie on the central meridian of the planet and so face the Earth. The times are in UT.

1st     22:23

8th     23:09

13th   22:17

18th   21:25

25th   22:11

30th   21:19



August 1st - late evening: Jupiter, Saturn and a waxing gibbous Moon

Jupiter
Jupiter, Saturn and a waxing Moon 2 days before Full.
Image: Stellarium/IM

In the late evening should it be clear, Jupiter will be seen towards the south above a waxing gibbous Moon with Saturn over to its left.

August 9th - late evening: Mars above a waning Moon.

Mars
Mars and the Moon.
Image: Stellarium/IM

Looking towards the south-east in the late evening, Mars will be seen up to the left of the Moon, 1 day before 3rd quarter.

The mornings of August 12th and 13th - midnight to dawn: look out for the Perseid meteor shower.

Perseids
A Perseid meteor

If clear, these mornings should give us a chance of observing the Perseid meteor shower - produced by debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.   The early morning of the 12th August will give us the best chance, if clear, of viewing the shower, but the peak is quite broad and so it is well worth observing on the nights before and after.   Most meteors are seen looking about 50 degrees from the "radiant" which lies between Perseus and Cassipeia.   On the 11th, the Moon, at third quarter, rises just after midnight so its light will begin to hide the fainter meteors. On the 12th and 13th it rises later and its phase will have reduced so its effects will be less. NB: As we need to view a very wide area of sky, normal binoculars would be of no use but the Vixen SG 2.1 x 42 that I have reviewed in the Astronomy Digest could be useful albeit over the smaller field of view of ~27 degrees.

Perseids
Looking East at ~1am on the morning of the 13th August
Image: Stellarium/IM

August 15th - before dawn : Venus below a very thin crescent Moon .

Venus
Venus and a thin crescent Moon.
Image: Stellarium/IM

Just before dawn on the 15th, and given a low horizon between the east and northeast, it might be possible to spot Venus below a very thin crescent Moon. Binoculars may well be needed, but please do not use them after the Sun has risen.

August 31st - six minutes past 5am BST: Mars and the International Space Station

Mars
Mars and The International Space Station.
Image: Stellarium/IM

If it is clear before dawn on the 31st of the month, you could see (assuming Stellarium is right) the International Space Station pass very close to Mars at around 05:06:45 BST.   Just under 30 seconds later it will pass the Pleiades Cluster.

August 9th and 25th - evening: The Hyginus Rille

20thJuly
Hyginus Rille location: IM.

These evenings, should it be clear, are a superb time to view the Hyginus Rill as it will lie close to the terminator.   For some time a debate raged as to whether the craters on the Moon were caused by impacts or volcanic activity.   We now know that virtually all were caused by impact, but it is thought that the Hyginus crater that lies at the centre of the Hyginus Rille may well be volcanic in origin.   It is an 11 km wide rimless pit - in contrast to impact craters which have raised rims - and its close association with the rille of the same name associates it with internal lunar events.   It can quite easily be seen to be surrounded by dark material.   It is thought that an explosive release of dust and gas created a vacant space below so that the overlying surface collapsed into it so forming the crater.

Hyginus Rille
Hyginus Crater and Rille

M16, the Eagle nebula, imaged with the Faulkes Telescope

M16
Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula
Image: Daniel Duggan
Faulkes Telescope North.


The Eagle Nebula, M16, imaged by Daniel Duggan.
This image was taken using the Faulkes Telescope North by Daniel Duggan - for some time a member of the Faulkes telescope team.   It is a region of dust and gas where stars are now forming.   The ultraviolet light from young blue stars is stripping the electrons from hydrogen atoms so this region contains ionized hydrogen and is called an HII region.   As the electrons drop back down through the hydrogen energy levels as the atoms re-form, red light at the H alpha wavelength is emitted.   This "true colour" image is composed of red, green and blue images along with a narrow band H alpha image.   A Hubble image of the central region, called the "Pillars of Creation", has become quite famous but looks green/blue in colour.   This is a false colour image where the H alpha image has been encoded as green!

Learn more about the Faulkes Telescopes and how schools can use them: Faulkes Telescope"












Observe the International Space Station

The International Space Station
The International Space Station and Jules Verne passing behind the Lovell Telescope on April 1st 2008.
Image by Andrew Greenwood

Use the link below to find when the space station will be visible in the next few days. In general, the space station can be seen either in the hour or so before dawn or the hour or so after sunset - this is because it is dark and yet the Sun is not too far below the horizon so that it can light up the space station. As the orbit only just gets up the the latitude of the UK it will usually be seen to the south, and is only visible for a minute or so at each sighting. Note that as it is in low-earth orbit the sighting details vary quite considerably across the UK. The NASA website linked to below gives details for several cities in the UK. (Across the world too for foreign visitors to this web page.)

Note: I observed the ISS three times recently and was amazed as to how bright it has become.

Find details of sighting possibilities from your location from: Location Index

See where the space station is now: Current Position


The Moon

3rd Quarter Moon
The Moon at 3rd Quarter. Image, by Ian Morison, taken with a 150mm Maksutov-Newtonian and Canon G7.
Just below the crator Plato seen near the top of the image is the mountain "Mons Piton".   It casts a long shadow across the maria from which one can calculate its height - about 6800ft or 2250m.
`
new moon first quarter full moon third quarter
August 19th August 25th August 3rd August 11th

Some Lunar Images by Ian Morison, Jodrell Bank Observatory: Lunar Images

A World Record Lunar Image

World record Lunar Image
The 9 day old Moon.

To mark International Year of Astronomy, a team of British astronomers have made the largest lunar image in history and gained a place in the Guinness Book of Records!   The whole image comprises 87.4 megapixels with a Moon diameter of 9,550 pixels.  The resolution of ~0.4 arc seconds allows details as small as 1km across to be discerned!   The superb quality of the image is shown by the detail below of Plato and the Alpine Valley.  Craterlets are seen on the floor of Plato and the rille along the centre of the Alpine valley is clearly visible.  The image quality is staggering! The team of Damian Peach, Pete lawrence, Dave Tyler, Bruce Kingsley, Nick Smith, Nick Howes, Trevor Little, David Mason, Mark and Lee Irvine with technical support from Ninian Boyle captured the video sequences from which 288 individual mozaic panes were produced.   These were then stitched together to form the lunar image.

Plato and the Alpine valley
Plato and the Alpine Valley.

Please follow the link to the Lunar World Record website and it would be really great if you could donate to Sir Patrick Moore's chosen charity to either download a full resolution image or purchase a print.









The 8 day old Moon

Lunar Image
The 8 day old Moon imaged by Ian Morison.

This image was taken by the author on a night in March 2018 when the Moon was at an elevation of ~52 degrees and the seeing was excellent.   This enabled the resolution of the image to be largely determined by the resolution of the 200 mm aperture telescope and the 3.75 micron pixel size of the Point Grey Chameleon 1.3 megapixel video camera.   The use of a near infrared filter allowed imaging to take place before it was dark and also reduced the effects of atmospheric turbulence.   The 'Drizzle' technique developed by the Hubble Space Telescope Institute (HSTI) was used to reduce the effective size of the camera's pixels to allow the image to be well sampled.   Around 100 gigabytes of data, acquired over a 2 hour period, was processed to produce images of 54 overlapping areas of the Moon which were then combined to give the full lunar disk in the free 'stitching' program Microsoft ICE.   A further HSTI development called 'deconvolution sharpening' was then applied to the image.   The Moon's disk is ~6,900 pixels in height and has a resolution of 0.6 to 0.7 arc seconds.   Interestingly, as seen in the inset image, the rille lying along the centre of the Alpine Valley is just discernable and this is only ~0.5 km wide!   [Due to size limitations the large image is 2/3 full size.]









The Planets

 A montage of the Solar System
A montage of the Solar System. JPL / Nasa

Jupiter

Jupiter
A Cassini image of Jupiter . Nasa

Jupiter. Visible throughout the hours of darkness and lying up to the left of the 'teapot' in Sagittarius, Jupiter reached opposition on July 14.   It is now visible in the south-southeast as darkness falls and crosses the meridian, so highest in elevation, at 11:30pm BST at the start of the month and by 9:30pm by month's end.  Its magnitude dims slightly from -2.7 to -2.6 during the month whilst its angular diameter falls from 47 to 44 arc seconds.   Sadly, even when due south, it will only have an elevation of ~16 degrees above the horizon so the atmosphere will limit our views.   A 'highlight' gives the times when the Great Red Spot faces the Earth.



Saturn

Saturn
The planet Saturn. Cassini - Nasa

Saturn Following Jupiter into the sky, some 8 degrees behind Jupiter as August begins, Saturn reached opposition on the 20th of July so, again, is visible throughout the hours of darkness - along with Jupiter dominating the southern sky in the late evening.   Its magnitude drops slightly during the month from +0.1 to + 0.3 whilst its angular size decreases from 18.4 to 18 arc seconds.   The rings span some 42 arc seconds across and, at 22 degrees to the line of sight, have opened out very slightly from previous months.   Saturn lies in Sagittarius close to the boarder of Capricornus.   Sadly again, its low elevation of ~16 degrees when crossing the meridian will somewhat limit our views of this most beautiful planet.




Mercury

Mercury.
Messenger image of Mercury Nasa

Mercury, is barely visible in the pre-dawn sky as August begins with a magnitude of -0.9 and a 6.1 arc second disk but, moving away from the Earth, passes behind the Sun on August 17th.






Mars

Mars showing Syrtis major.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of Mars.
Jim Bell et al. AURA / STScI / Nasa

Mars, in Pisces, can be seen towards the southeast at the start of the month rising 3 hours after sunset as August begins and 2 hours by its end.   Its magnitude will rise from -1.1 to -1.8 during the month as its angular size increases from 14.6 to 18.7 arc seconds.   It reaches an elevation of ~40 degrees as dawn approaches so amateur telescopes will enable one to see features, such as Syrtis Major, on its surface when the seeing conditions are good.




Venus

Venus
Venus showing some cloud structure

Venus, rises about 2am in the north north-east throughout the month but, as the Sun rises later as the days pass, the interval between Venus-rise and Sunrise increases by about 20 minutes.   It shines at magnitude -4.5 as August begins, dropping to -4.3 by month's end whilst its angular size shrinks from 27 to 20 arc seconds.   During the same time its its phase (the illuminated percentage of the disk) increases from 43% to 59% which is why the fall in magnitude is not that great.   Venus reaches greatest elongation west on August 12th, some 46 degrees away from the Sun.   In Taurus as August begins, it passes into the upper left of Orion on the 5th before moving into Gemini on the 13th ending the month some 9 degrees below Pollux, the head of one of the 'twins'.

Radar Image of Venus
Radar image showing surface features









The Stars

The mid evening August Sky

July Sky
The August Sky in the south - mid evening.

Now that the evenings are drawing in, the night sky gets darker earlier so encouraging one to go out to observe.

This map shows the constellations seen towards the south at about 10pm BST in mid August. High over head towards the north (not shown on the chart) lies Ursa Major. As one moves southwards one first crosses the constellation Hercules with its magnificent globular cluster, M13, and then across the large but not prominent constellation Ophiucus until, low above the souther horizon lie Sagittarius and Scorpio. To the right of Hercules lie the arc of stars making up Corona Borealis and then Bootes with its bright star Arcturus. Rising in the east is the beautiful region of the Milky Way containing both Cygnus and Lyra. Below is the constellation of Aquilla, the Eagle. The three bright stars Deneb (in Cygnus), Vega (in Lyra) and Altair (in Aquila) make up the "Summer Triangle".

The constellation Ursa Major

Ursa Major
Ursa Major

The stars of the Plough, shown linked by the thicker lines in the chart above, form one of the most recognised star patterns in the sky. Also called the Big Dipper, after the soup ladles used by farmer's wives in America to serve soup to the farm workers at lunchtime, it forms part of the Great Bear constellation - not quite so easy to make out! The stars Merak and Dubhe form the pointers which will lead you to the Pole Star, and hence find North. The stars Alcor and Mizar form a naked eye double which repays observation in a small telescope as Mizar is then shown to be an easily resolved double star. A fainter reddish star forms a triangle with Alcor and Mizar.

Ursa Major contains many interesting "deep sky" objects. The brightest, listed in Messier's Catalogue, are shown on the chart, but there are many fainter galaxies in the region too. In the upper right of the constellation are a pair of interacting galaxies M81 and M82 shown in the image below. M82 is undergoing a major burst of star formation and hence called a "starburst galaxy". They can be seen together using a low power eyepiece on a small telescope.

M81 and M82
M81 and M82

Another, and very beautiful, galaxy is M101 which looks rather like a pinwheel firework, hence its other name the Pinwheel Galaxy. It was discovered in1781 and was a late entry to Messier's calalogue of nebulous objects. It is a type Sc spiral galaxy seen face on which is at a distance of about 24 million light years. Type Sc galaxies have a relativly small nucleus and open spiral arms. With an overall diameter of 170,000 light it is one of the largest spirals known (the Milky Way has a diameter of ~ 130,000 light years).

M101
M101 - The Ursa Major Pinwheel Galaxy

Though just outside the constellation boundary, M51 lies close to Alkaid, the leftmost star of the Plough. Also called the Whirlpool Galaxy it is being deformed by the passage of the smaller galaxy on the left. This is now gravitationally captured by M51 and the two will eventually merge. M51 lies at a distance of about 37 million light years and was the first galaxy in which spiral arms were seen. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1773 and the spiral structure was observed by Lord Rosse in 1845 using the 72" reflector at Birr Castle in Ireland - for many years the largest telescope in the world.

M51
M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

Lying close to Merak is the planetary nebula M97 which is usually called the Owl Nebula due to its resemblance to an owl's face with two large eyes. It was first called this by Lord Rosse who drew it in 1848 - as shown in the image below right. Planetary nebulae ar the remnants of stars similar in size to our Sun. When all possible nuclear fusion processes are complete, the central core collpses down into a "white dwarf" star and the the outer parts of the star are blown off to form the surrounding nebula.

Owl Nebula Owl Nebula
M97 - The Owl Planetary Nebula Lord Rosse's 1848 drawing of the Owl Nebula

The constellation Hercules

Hercules
Hercules

Between the constellation Bootes and the bright star Vega in Lyra lies the constellation Hercules.The Red Giant star Alpha Herculis or Ras Algethi, its arabic name, is one of the largest stars known, with a diameter of around 500 times that of our Sun. In common with most giant stars it varies its size, changing in brightness as it does so from 3rd to 4th magnitude. Lying along one side of the "keystone" lies one of the wonders of the skies, the great globular cluster, M13. Just visible to the unaided eye on a dark clear night, it is easily seen through binoculars as a small ball of cotten wool about 1/3 the diameter of the full Moon. The brightness increases towards the centre where the concentration of stars is greatest. It is a most beautiful sight in a small telescope. It contains around 300,000 stars in a region of space 100 light years across, and is the brightest globular cluster that can be seen in the northern hemisphere.

Globular Cluster M13
The Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules. Image by Yuugi Kitahara

The constellation Virgo

Virgo
Virgo

Virgo, in the south-west after sunset this month, is not one of the most prominent constellations, containing only one bright star, Spica, but is one of the largest and is very rewarding for those with "rich field" telescopes capable of seeing the many galaxies that lie within its boundaries. Spica is, in fact, an exceedingly close double star with the two B type stars orbiting each other every 4 days. Their total luminosity is 2000 times that of our Sun. In the upper right hand quadrant of Virgo lies the centre of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. There are 13 galaxies in the Messier catalogue in this region, all of which can be seen with a small telescope. The brightest is the giant elliptical galaxy, M87, with a jet extending from its centre where there is almost certainly a massive black hole into which dust and gas are falling. This releases great amounts of energy which powers particles to reach speeds close to the speed of light forming the jet we see. M87 is also called VIRGO A as it is a very strong radio source.

M87 MERLIN images
The Giant Elliptical Galaxy M87 HST image showing the jet

Below Porrima and to the right of Spica lies M104, an 8th magnitude spiral galaxy about 30 million light years away from us. Its spiral arms are edge on to us so in a small telescope it appears as an elliptical galaxy. It is also known as the Sombrero Galaxy as it looks like a wide brimmed hat in long exposure photographs.

The Sombrero Galaxy
M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy

The constellations Lyra and Cygnus

Cygnus and Lyra
Lyra and Cygnus

This month the constellations Lyra and Cygnus are rising in the East as darkness falls with their bright stars Vega, in Lyra, and Deneb, in Cygnus, making up the "summer triangle" of bright stars with Altair in the constellation Aquila below. (see sky chart above)

Lyra

Lyra is dominated by its brightest star Vega, the fifth brightest star in the sky. It is a blue-white star having a magnitude of 0.03, and lies 26 light years away. It weighs three times more than the Sun and is about 50 times brighter. It is thus burning up its nuclear fuel at a greater rate than the Sun and so will shine for a correspondingly shorter time. Vega is much younger than the Sun, perhaps only a few hundred million years old, and is surrounded by a cold,dark disc of dust in which an embryonic solar system is being formed!

There is a lovely double star called Epsilon Lyrae up and to the left of Vega. A pair of binoculars will show them up easily - you might even see them both with your unaided eye. In fact a telescope, provided the atmosphere is calm, shows that each of the two stars that you can see is a double star as well so it is called the double double!

The Double Double
Epsilon Lyra - The Double Double

Between Beta and Gamma Lyra lies a beautiful object called the Ring Nebula. It is the 57th object in the Messier Catalogue and so is also called M57. Such objects are called planetary nebulae as in a telescope they show a disc, rather like a planet. But in fact they are the remnants of stars, similar to our Sun, that have come to the end of their life and have blown off a shell of dust and gas around them. The Ring Nebula looks like a greenish smoke ring in a small telescope, but is not as impressive as it is shown in photographs in which you can also see the faint central "white dwarf" star which is the core of the original star which has collapsed down to about the size of the Earth. Still very hot this shines with a blue-white colour, but is cooling down and will eventually become dark and invisible - a "black dwarf"! Do click on the image below to see the large version - its wonderful!

M57 - The Ring Nebula
M57 - the Ring Nebula
Image: Hubble Space telescope

M56 is an 8th magnitude Globular Cluster visible in binoculars roughly half way between Alberio (the head of the Swan) and Gamma Lyrae. It is 33,000 light years away and has a diameter of about 60 light years. It was first seen by Charles Messier in 1779 and became the 56th entry into his catalogue.

M56 - Globular Cluster
M56 - Globular Cluster

Cygnus

Cygnus, the Swan, is sometimes called the "Northern Cross" as it has a distinctive cross shape, but we normally think of it as a flying Swan. Deneb,the arabic word for "tail", is a 1.3 magnitude star which marks the tail of the swan. It is nearly 2000 light years away and appears so bright only because it gives out around 80,000 times as much light as our Sun. In fact if Deneb where as close as the brightest star in the northern sky, Sirius, it would appear as brilliant as the half moon and the sky would never be really dark when it was above the horizon!

The star, Albireo, which marks the head of the Swan is much fainter, but a beautiful sight in a small telescope. This shows that Albireo is made of two stars, amber and blue-green, which provide a wonderful colour contrast. With magnitudes 3.1 and 5.1 they are regarded as the most beautiful double star that can be seen in the sky.

Alberio
Alberio: Diagram showing the colours and relative brightnesses

Cygnus lies along the line of the Milky Way, the disk of our own Galaxy, and provides a wealth of stars and clusters to observe. Just to the left of the line joining Deneb and Sadr, the star at the centre of the outstretched wings, you may, under very clear dark skys, see a region which is darker than the surroundings. This is called the Cygnus Rift and is caused by the obscuration of light from distant stars by a lane of dust in our local spiral arm. the dust comes from elements such as carbon which have been built up in stars and ejected into space in explosions that give rise to objects such as the planetary nebula M57 described above.

Deneb,the arabic word for "tail", is a 1.3 magnitude star which marks the tail of the swan. It is nearly 2000 light years away and appears so bright only because it gives out around 80,000 times as much light as our Sun. In fact if Deneb where as close as the brightest star in the northern sky, Sirius, it would appear as brilliant as the half moon and the sky would never be really dark when it was above the horizon!

There is a beautiful region of nebulosity up and to the left of Deneb which is visible with binoculars in a very dark and clear sky. Photographs show an outline that looks like North America - hence its name the North America Nebula. Just to its right is a less bright region that looks like a Pelican, with a long beak and dark eye, so not surprisingly this is called the Pelican Nebula. The photograph below shows them well.

The North American Nebula
The North American Nebula

Brocchi's Cluster An easy object to spot with binoculars in Gygnus is "Brocchi's Cluster", often called "The Coathanger",although it appears upside down in the sky! Follow down the neck of the swan to the star Alberio, then sweep down and to its lower left. You should easily spot it against the dark dust lane behind.

The Coathanger
Brocchi's Cluster - The Coathanger