Chris Bramley Hello and welcome to Star Diary, the podcast from the makers of BBC Sky at Night Magazine. You can subscribe to the print edition of the magazine by visiting www.skyatnightmagazine.com or digital edition by visiting on iTunes or Google Play.
Ezzy Pearson: Greetings listeners, and welcome to Star Diary. A weekly stargazing guide to the best things to see in the northern hemispheres night sky. As we are based here in the UK all times are in BST. In this episode, we'll be covering the coming week from 31 July to 6 August. I'm features editor Ezzy Pearson, and I'm joined this week by reviews editor Paul Money.
Hello Paul.
Paul Money: Hello Ezzy. How nice to see you again and, uh, let's look forward to what this week has got for us.
Ezzy: Absolutely. So what do we have looking forward to moving into August?
Paul: Almost a last gasp in the evening sky. We mentioned last week we lost Venus. So yes, Venus is out the way, but Mercury is lingering. It's a very poor apparition. Um, it just happens to be the summer apparitions for Mercury are always very poor because the ecliptic is that shallow angle. But Mercury still there. And if you possibly can see, you are looking around about half past nine. Now, the further north you go, the higher the sun will be. So the sun might not have set. So bear that in mind. You have to be very careful.
Ezzy: It is worth bearing in mind uh, at home if you are... any times that we give it is probably an idea to check them at home because it does change exactly when they are, um, depending on where you are in the country or where you are in the world.
Paul: Exactly, and if you look towards the West Northwest, in that general region, low down, about 20 minutes after sunset, you should be able to catch Mercury with Mars a few degrees to its upper left. Mercury will be the brighter of the two, but in twilight. They are gonna be struggling. As I say, summer apparitions are really poor for Mercury sort of thing.
So if you do see it, count yourself, very, very lucky at actually spotting it. After this, it really is gonna struggle and it'll drop down. Bit like Venus dropped rapidly back down towards the horizon and disappeared. So Mercury will do the same as well. And moving on. We've got the planets, the giant planets, and we've got the moon and Saturn is now rising before 10:00 PM over in the east with Neptune, just a short while later.
So if you want to leave it for an hour to let them get a bit higher, you'll notice that from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, you've got the Moon passing Saturn, and then Neptune. The Moon will be to the right of Saturn, uh, on the actual second. Then on the 3rd it'll be to the lower left of Saturn. So you get... you could actually do a nice, like composite picture here if you actually take them.
Because you could photograph it when it's on one side and then photograph, and then merge the two. So like using layers sort of thing. I'm sure we could do an astro processing or something like, This and you could get showing the motion of the Moon past these planets. So it's to the right of that on 2nd to the left, on 3rd then the next evening the Moon lies directly under Neptune. But you've got to bear in mind that Neptune is not naked eye, you will need binoculars.
Ezzy: No, it's not
Paul: To spot that, but, but at least you've got the moon to guide you to it. And of course you'll have the star charts that I'm sure will be in the magazine at the time.
Ezzy: Absolutely. We have a detailed sky guide in every single issue of Sky at Night Magazine, so if you want to find out what the planets are doing or generally what's up in the night sky, you can always go there for even more information if Star Diary isn't quite enough for you.
Paul: Whilst we're in the morning sky, of course, if you leave it a bit later, you will actually have Jupiter and Uranus rising.
Now August 6th. 2:00 AM in the morning. I know it is a real time, honest. If you're an astronomer you should know this. You have to get up sometimes for these things. But over due east, we've got Jupiter and Uranus and they form... most of the time we wait until the Moon's there, but they actually form a decent triangle, a very shallow triangle with the Pleiades star cluster and I always get excited when I can see the Pleiades in the morning sky. Because to me, yes, winter's on the way!
I don't mind the warmth at all sort of thing. The barmy summer nights for observing sort of thing. But the dark skies, they have so much to offer us sort of thing. And at least we are beginning to see the nice drawing in well now. When we get into August, we start to see some decent, dark nights. So yes, Jupiter, Uranus, and the Pleiades make quite a nice shallow triangle.
2:00 AM on the 6th. I mean, Uranus is very slow moving and Jupiter isn't moving very fast at the moment, so it's gonna be around for the next week or so, at least in this configuration, so you'll be able to enjoy it. So why not take a picture and capture a star cluster, a distant planet, and Jupiter as well.
Ezzy: It's actually interesting that you should mention about Pleiades being the way that you sort of say that the night skies are on the way. Because actually the Pleiades is something that a lot of cultures use to kind of track out the passing of time. Uh, for instance, we had back in our July issue of Sky at Night Magazine, we had a feature about Utah for stargazing and some of the native Navajo people's star stories.
And one of theirs was, that when the Pleiades wasn't in the sky, that was the time that you were supposed to be sowing your seeds. Um, there's various stories about how the, the Pleiades was seven very naughty boys who would steal all your seeds, so you had to wait until they were out of the way. Um, but you can read about that over on our website, www.skynightmagazine.com.
I will put a link down in the show notes. Uh, if you want to read more about those star stories.
Paul: Okay. It's, I mean, I find them fascinating, you know, the fact that, uh, you know, different cultures saw them in different ways. So, uh, I... that is absolutely brilliant. I mean, the seven sisters. Yeah. And then to think the Navajo see them as seven brothers. It's quite intriguing sort of thing, you know.
So yes, keep an eye out them. So they are up above the horizon. We've got all four giant planets on display at the moment as well in the morning sky. Um, Not a lot else is really happening this particular week itself, um, we've already seen sort of the Moon next to Saturn and Uranus sort of thing and Neptune. We've already seen Saturn, uh, with the moon and then Neptune with the moon, but it falls to next week for them to reach Jupiter and Uranus. That's the gap. Between Neptune and Jupiter and Uranus, now he's got quite large showing how Jupiter and Uranus have moved on quite a lot along the ecliptic over the last couple of years.
However, all week. If you do get clear skies and you like being up in the morning sky, keep an eye out because the Perseid meteor shower.... now I know it doesn't peak until next week, but the actual... it starts to rise, activity begins to rise during this particular week sort of thing. Usually towards the end of July, into the beginning of August.
And so, it's not one of those things we, we often hear about these meteor showers. For the night of the peak and that's when the media mentioned it. But the reality is most meteor showers have quite a broad range, but they just build to a peak and then drop back again. So, you know, this is the week to start looking out. You never know. You might spot the Perseids. If you see them. You're looking for something that's radiating away from the sort of like the top end part of Perseus on the borderline with Cassiopeia. Technically, by the way, the radiant is actually in Cassiopeia. So it's one of those things, but you know, that's down to the reconfiguration of the international boundaries.
The International Astronomical Union rearrange the boundaries. So visually it looks like it's coming from the top end of Perseus, but technically the radiant actually lies in Cassiopeia. So I always think that's quite a funny thing sort of thing. The first is we can imagine trying to rename them the Cassiopeioids.
That's a bit more of a mouthful, isn't it?
Ezzy: Doesn't, doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well.
Paul: No, but I say, because these build up, they ramp up. It's worth having a look because if you see any meteor that's definitely come from that region in the sky and that's the key with meteor showers. You track them back and if it happens to intersect the area where we consider the radiant to be then you've probably got Perseid. I do often see photographs where people say, "oh, I caught a Perseid".. And it's at right angles too. It's crossing the path that you should have sort of thing.
I mean, you know, quite often you can get a flurry of sporadic meteors and then that's it. And they're just one-offs, so that's why they're sporadic. So it's one of those things. So yes, to end the week, keep an eye out, look out. For the person as they begin to build, you might see a few.
Ezzy: And if you want to find out more about observing the Perseids or in fact any of the other meteor showers throughout the year, there's... this year's actually really good for meteor your showers because the moon tends to be out of the way for all of the biggest ones.
So that's gonna be really good. Um, and we have a guide all about that in our August issue, um, including some advice about if you want to try and monitor a meteor shower. If you want to try and take some readings of exactly when and how bright various meteors were, which is something that, the BAA, the British Astronomical Association is... uh, collates and puts together and is really helpful to scientists and they actually really like it when people take readings away from the peak, because not many people do that. But that's just as important if you're trying to monitor these kinds of meteor showers. So this week, if you are... if there's a fine evening and you find yourself at de loose end, maybe have a look for some meteor yours and I will put a link in the show notes down to that.
Or you can pick up the August issue of BBC Sky Night Magazine. But thank you very much, Paul, for taking us through everything this week. To summarise, on 31 July, Mercury still lingering in the evening sky with Mars close by. Do be sure to catch that because it is going to start disappearing very soon.
And also we should point out on 1st August, uh, there is going to be a super Moon. So we don't normally talk about the full Moon because, uh, most astronomers don't tend to like it very much, especially when the nights are so light anyway, it tends to block out a lot of those dim objects in the night sky.
But because the moon's orbit isn't exactly circular, it's a little bit egg shaped, that means sometimes it's closer in its orbit than others. And on this particular full Moon, it's gonna be a little bit closer to Earth than it is on most other full Moons. Um, and it will be slightly brighter in the night sky, and that's what we call the Supermoon.
It doesn't really have much of an effect from a sort of astronomy point of view. It's mostly a PR thing to be honest. Um, but people often get very excited when there is this super moon because it's... it will only appear a couple of percent bigger and, and maybe 10% or so brighter. But this one is particularly interesting because it is the first of two that will be happening in August. So when we come back, uh, for the week of the 30th, we will be talking about the Super Blue Moon, uh, when that one happens again. So it might be interesting to try and capture both of them one at the beginning and one at the end of the month, uh, if you so wish.
Then on 2, 3 and 4 August, Saturn is going to be rising in the evening sky with, uh, Neptune joining along as well. And over those three nights, the Moon will be passing underneath the pair of planets. On 6 August, Jupiter and Uranus will form a shallow triangle with the Pleiades and all week do keep an eye out for any Perseids that you might see in the night sky, but we'll have more on those next week.
So if you want to make sure that you are back to catch those, Do subscribe to the podcast and we will see you here next week. Goodbye.
Paul: Goodbye.
Ezzy: If you want to find out even more spectacular sites that will be gracing the night sky this month, be sure to pick up a copy of BBC Sky at Night Magazine, where we have a 16 page pullout sky sky guide with a full overview of everything worth looking up for throughout the whole month.
Whether you like to look at the moon, the planets, or the deep sky, whether you use binoculars, telescopes, or neither. Our Sky Guide has got you covered with detailed star charts to help you track your way across the night sky. From all of us here at BBC Sky Night Magazine, goodbye. Thank
Chris: you for listening to this episode of the Star Diary podcast from the makers of BBC Sky Night Magazine.
For more of our podcasts, visit our website, www.skyatnightmagazine.com or head to iTunes or Spotify.
