August 17: Dog Days The leading light of winter’s evening skies is climbing into view in the morning sky. According to tradition, that brings an end to the “dog days.” Sirius is known as the Dog Star. It’s also the brightest star in the entire night sky. August 18: Bright Queen Cassiopeia circles up across the northeastern sky this evening. The queen’s brightest stars form a letter W, making the constellation quite easy to find. All five of the stars in that pattern are much bigger, heavier, and brighter than the Sun. August 19: Scorpion and Teapot The bright constellations Scorpius and Sagittarius are in the south at nightfall. Look for the curving body of the scorpion just above the horizon, with the orange star Antares in its middle. Sagittarius is to the left of the scorpion; its brightest stars outline a teapot. August 20: Full Moon The Moon is full at 8:45 p.m. CDT. Our satellite world aligns opposite the Sun in our sky, so sunlight fully illuminates the hemisphere that faces Earth. August’s full Moon is known as the Grain Moon or Green Corn Moon, setting up the Harvest Moon next month. August 21: Saturn Saturn is sliding down the southwestern sky as we head into the last month of summer. The planet looks like a bright golden star far to the upper left of the planet Venus, the “evening star,” as night falls. August 22: Sun and Regulus If we could see the stars behind the Sun now, we would notice that it is almost touching the star Regulus, the heart of the lion. The Sun crossed into Leo almost two weeks ago, and it won’t exit the constellation until next month. August 23: Great Square Rising One of the prominent star patterns of late summer and autumn, the Great Square of Pegasus, is low in the east as the sky gets good and dark. It represents the body of the mythological flying horse.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:56:37 +0000
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