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What's in the Sky is a monthly newsletter showcasing various objects and events visible in the sky for the upcoming month. It is written by FoGAP member Jim White for local newspapers. Note: Not all objects discussed may be visible during Observatory shows. Object visibility depends on location in the sky, rise and set times, and weather. Some objects may only be viewable during the early morning. August is here. How can it already be the last full month of summer? Nights are growing longer and days shorter. On Aug 1, we have 15 hours and 40 minutes of daylength. By the end of the month, that will have shrunk to 14 hours and 47 minutes, a difference of a bit more than an hour. The good news with darkness arriving earlier is that you don’t need to wait quite as long for full darkness (also known as the end of astronomical twilight). Full darkness at the start of August will be at about 10:43pm, but will be about an hour earlier by the end of the month, occurring at about 9:30pm. A wonderful thing to view on August nights is our own galaxy – the Milky Way. We see the galaxy as a hazy band across the night sky, and it is best visible in August. Facing south on a moonless August night, the Milky Way soars high overhead. Look to the south, looking toward the “teapot” of the constellation Sagittarius, and you are looking toward the Milky Way’s center. Look straight overhead, and pick out the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, also known as the northern cross. The bright star Deneb is right in the middle of the Milky Way. Look to the north, and find the fainter Milky Way behind the “W” shaped constellation Cassiopeia. Marvel at the beauty of this river of stars!  The Milky Way is actually a spiral disc-shape, and we are within one of its disc’s arms. When we look along the plane disc, we see more stars than when we look 90 degrees from the disc’s plane. Even though we call the concentrated area of stars the “Milky Way”, in reality every star we see in the sky is within the galaxy. And we see only a small part of the galaxy, the stars closer to us. The galaxy is huge, some 100,000 light years from one end of the disc to the other. Since light travels some 186,000 miles a SECOND, we can see that the Milky Way is immense!
To best view the Milky Way, best to pick a dark night, when the Moon is not in the sky, and a dark site, with as little artificial light as possible. Also, let your eyes adapt to the darkness, by staying out of artificial light for a good 20 minutes. Finding a dark site is increasingly difficult with the ever-increasing amount of artificial light we live with nowadays. We are lucky in our area, with a lot of dark, rural locations and relatively small cities. Thanks to artificial lighting, people in most American cities are not able to easily view the galaxy we live in. Our Moon will be at the first-quarter stage as August begins. On the 3rd, the waxing gibbous Moon will lie just to the left of the bright star Antares, low in the south in the evening sky, in the constellation Scorpius. Full Moon comes on the 9th. On the 16th, the waning crescent Moon will lie just to the right of the star cluster Pleiades, in the early morning sky. The Moon will actually pass in front of the star cluster, a nice occultation. However, we’ll miss it, as the occultation will occur after sunrise. The thin, waxing crescent Moon will return to the evening sky late in the month. Look for the Moon between Mars and the bright star Spica, low in the west, after sunset on the 26th. The Moon will be back in Scorpius at the end of the Month, just past first quarter. Mars is technically still visible in August, although very close to the western horizon after sunset. The only other naked-eye visible planet in the month will be Saturn, which rises above the eastern evening horizon after about 10pm late in the month. Jupiter and Venus are visible in the morning sky, in the east. On August 11, Jupiter and Venus come close together in a nice conjunction. Right after that conjunction, on August 12 and 13, the Perseid meteor shower will peak. The Moon, which will be about 80 percent illuminated, will make fewer meteors visible. Brighter meteors will be visible, and viewing the Moon and the moonlit landscape on a warm summer evening can be quite pleasant. Enjoy the night skies of August! What's in the Sky is a monthly newsletter showcasing various objects and events visible in the sky for the upcoming month. It is written by FoGAP member Jim White for local newspapers. Note: Not all objects discussed may be visible during Observatory shows. Object visibility depends on location in the sky, rise and set times, and weather. Some objects may only be viewable during the early morning. July is here. Time for our nation’s birthday, and the first full month of summer. July 3 is the date for something you might not expect – on that date, Earth will be farther from the Sun than any other date in the year. Our orbit around the Sun is slightly elliptical, not a perfect circle. In early July we are on the outer edge of that ellipse, a bit farther than average. We are closest to the Sun in - you guessed it – January! Again, the bright planets are pretty much absent from the evening sky in July. Mars is still visible low in the west. Look for the red planet just to the left of the constellation Leo the Lion. Early in July Mercury will also be visible to the right of Mars and lower in the sky. Mercury will be very low, so look right after sunset. Mercury should appear a bit brighter than Mars.  If you are an early riser, you might catch Jupiter and Venus, low in the east before sunrise. They will be quite bright and easy to spot. Jupiter will be very low early in the month, rising higher in the sky as the month goes on. The two planets will grow closer as we see them in the sky. We’ll have a close conjunction of the two in early August.
If you are up that early, you might as well check out Saturn, high in the early morning southern sky. Saturn actually sneaks into the evening sky late in August, rising at about 10:45pm at the end of the month. July will be an excellent month to spot the International Space Station (ISS) as it orbits overhead. If you have not seen it, the ISS can be quite impressive, appearing as a bright star, silently zooming across the evening sky. The ISS is illuminated by reflected sunlight. When we are able to see it in the evening, the sun has not yet set at its location, some 200 miles above Earth. From our viewpoint, it will fade and disappear when its orbit carries it into the Earth’s shadow. The best times are when the ISS orbit carries it high above us in the night sky. Some good times to check it out are:
To see more options, navigate to the website heavens-above (www.heavens-above.com). Under “configuration” click on “change your observing location”. Under “select location” scroll down, past the map, and look for “enter place to search for”. Enter your location (i.e. “White Salmon” or “The Dalles” etc.) and select “update”. You could also use the map to get a closer location. Back on the main page, look for “Satellites” and “ISS” under “10-day predictions for satellites of special interest”. You will then see dates and times for viewing the ISS. Times might be slightly different than what I show (I’m doing this in mid-June) as satellites orbits vary a bit. Give it a try! What's in the Sky is a monthly newsletter showcasing various objects and events visible in the sky for the upcoming month. It is written by FoGAP member Jim White for local newspapers. Note: Not all objects discussed may be visible during Observatory shows. Object visibility depends on location in the sky, rise and set times, and weather. Some objects may only be viewable during the early morning. Welcome to June, the month of the summer solstice, when summer begins. Darkness comes late, but in the evening sky you can still spot reddish Mars, watch its conjunction with a bright star mid-month, or just marvel at the always changing pattern of constellations in the night sky. There is always something to see! Summer begins on the summer solstice, for us occurring on June 20. At that time, the Sun is as far north as it gets, about 67 degrees above the horizon at mid-day. We’ll have our longest day, with sunrise at about 5:15am, and sunset at about 9pm. After the 20th, the Sun will slowly begin to drop lower in the sky, and days will begin to shorten. It will start slowly though; around the solstices, the change in the length of day is pretty small. In fact, the word solstice is derived from a Latin term roughly meaning “sun standing still”. That is because, around the solstice, the Sun’s movement in its altitude above the horizon is very slight. The major planets have pretty much left the evening sky in June. Mars is still visible in the southwest, but is growing farther away and becoming fainter. By the end of June, Mars will be some 179 million miles from us, about twice as far as we are from the Sun. Mars is still easily visible to the naked eye though, and still has a reddish color. June presents a good time to note how the planets move across the sky in relation to the stars. Look for Mars, and see if you can also spot the bright star Regulus, in the constellation Leo. A good way to find Regulus is to look for the thin crescent Moon on June 1, and you’ll find Regulus right below it. Mars will be to the right of Regulus, and a bit lower in the sky. As the month progresses, Mars will move closer to Regulus, until on the 17th, Mar will lie just above Regulus. By the end of June, Mars will have moved noticeably to the east (left) of the bright star.  Jupiter and Mercury are also in the evening sky, although very low in the west. Look for bright Jupiter very low in the west-northwest after sunset. By mid-month it will be getting hard to spot. Mercury is very low in the west at the start of June, but will rise higher as the month progresses. Look for Jupiter and Mercury to be very close to each other on June 7. They should be easy to spot. After the 7th, Mercury will grow higher in the sky during June, although always low in the west. See if you can spot it, many people have never seen Mercury.
If you are up early, Venus and Saturn are prominent in our eastern morning sky. Venus remains low in the east for all of June. Saturn gradually moves higher in the sky, and moves to the southeast by the end of the month. June’s full Moon comes on the 11th, with new Moon following on June 25. As already mentioned, the Moon will be close to Regulus on June 1. The waxing gibbous Moon will pass the bright star Spica on the nights of June 5 and 6, and will be just to the right of the bright star Antares on the 9th. The Moon will pass Saturn in the morning sky on June 17 and 18. On the 29th, the Moon will be back in the evening sky, just to the left of Mars. The march of constellations across the night sky continues in June. Spring constellations, such as Leo and Cancer, are dropping low in the western sky. In the East, Lyra, with its bright star Vega, and Cygnus the Swan are both well above the horizon as skies darken. Looking north, Ursa major, with the Big Dipper, lies to the west of Polaris, the north star. The star at the tip of the Big Dipper, Alkaid, is almost directly overhead in June. Enjoy June’s night skies! |
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May 2026
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