"Keep looking up!"
"Being and acting crazy is what keeps me from going crazy."
-StarChild
"Me want cookie."
-Cookie Monster
StarChild LOVES RoseMarie
Hey, RosiePants? You know what?
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy whe skies are gray.
Knowbody knows dear, how much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away."
@--)---
PLANETS VISIBLE FOR AUGUST 2008
MERCURY has entered the evening sky, although it remains low in the western twilight all month. It is near Venus and Saturn at times during August, although all are low in the western sky and set within about an hour of sunset.
VENUS is an "evening star" for now, but it is quite low in the West at sunset and visible only for a short time thereafter. The current geometry causes it to hug the western horizon for Northern Hemisphere observers. It is near Saturn (which it passes on the 13th) and Mercury (which passes Venus on the 23rd), and not far from increasingly faint Mars.
MARS remains in Leo until it crosses the border into Virgo about the middle of the second week of the month. In the western sky at sunset, it is not bright -- about the equivalent of a second magnitude star. A finder chart or Starry Night are useful in identifying it, and its image in a telescope is too small to reveal any significant detail. On the good side, at the time of this writing all three robot explorers on the surface of Mars -- Opportunity, Spirit and Phoenix -- are alive and well and sending back information!
JUPITER continues to dominate the evening sky, and after Venus sets it has no competition at all. It is well up in the southeastern sky (in Sagittarius) passing through the region of the sky in the general direction of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. A fabulous sight in a small telescope, Jupiter sets in the southwestern sky several hours after midnight.
SATURN is just about gone, deep in the glow of the setting Sun. Determined observers may still find it for a very short time after sunset, low to the West. Venus passes by on the 13th. After that, Saturn is lost to the Sun until it re-emerges in the morning sky in late September.
LEO AND BULLWINKLE
The zodiacal constellation Leo, the lion, is one of a handful of constellations that really does look like its namesake. Look for Leo high in south in April and May.
Leo's brightest star is blue-white Regulus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Regulus rises almost due east, with the body of the lion following it into the sky over the next couple of hours. Once Regulus climbs into the sky, look to its left — toward the north — for a group of stars forming a backward question mark. These stars outline Leo's head and mane.
About two hours later, look low in the east for Leo's tail — a white star named Denebola — an Arabic name that, appropriately enough, means "tail of the lion."
ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE FOREVER!
