~ St. Maarten’s Backyard Astronomy for August 8 - 10 ~
Sun rises at 5:53am
Sun sets at 6:42pm
Lunar phase: Full Moon
Moon rises at 7:12pm, Saturday
Moon sets at 6:03am, Sunday
This weekend, the full moon reigns supreme in our night skies. The August full moon is known as the Sturgeon Moon, a reference to some very good fishing in the deep freshwater lakes of North America. Other cultures, however, honour the full moon of August with various names such as the Lynx Moon, the Grain Moon and the Corn Moon. It's important to remember these names are in no way descriptive of how the full moon appears, but instead the names signify how people value the sight of a full moon throughout the year, with the shifting of the seasons.
This week, watch the moon as it tracks each night across the sky. By Monday and Tuesday nights, the moon, no longer full, will encounter Saturn, the ringed planet. This is a great chance to see the moon and Saturn within the same view of your binoculars or telescope. By Wednesday, the moon will be thinner still, and shifting farther east, coming close to the Pleiades star cluster by next weekend. Very early on Tuesday morning, look for Venus and Jupiter staging a spectacular close encounter in the eastern sky.
Mars, known as the Red Planet, is currently in the western evening sky. It lies near the bright star Spica, of the constellation Virgo. Mars is the most fascinating of the visible planets to watch with the unaided eye, because it’s so close to us - it’s the next-outward planet from Earth in orbit around the sun. It’s smaller than Earth, which makes its brightness fluctuate quite dramatically throughout its cycle. Now Earth is moving ahead of Mars in our smaller, faster orbit around the sun. And as a result, Mars is fading day by day and will slip out of the evening sky by November. Then we won’t see Mars again until March of next year when it will emerge in the morning sky.
The most distinctive feature of Mars to the unaided eye is its reddish colour. When you view Mars from a dark-sky location, its colour really stands out. The red colour is what drew ancient stargazers to name the planet after the god of war. Iron oxide in the rocks, the same compound that makes rust reddish on Earth, makes the surface of Mars look red, too.
Thank you for keeping up with the Night Sky articles, backyard (or beach) astronomy designed for St. Maarten sky viewing. FYI: If you are out later on in the week, note that each star rises about four minutes earlier each day than written here, and the moon rises 50 minutes later. Night Sky is researched and compiled by Lisa Davis-Burnett. Earthsky.org is a key resource for information and images. Questions or comments? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
