All through this month, look for the ever-changing, day-by-day configuration of the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter.
They dominate the east-northeast twilight sky all month long. During the first 11 days of the month, watch as Jupiter slowly draws closer to Venus, the gap between the two closes from 10 degrees on Aug. 1, to 7-degrees on Aug.5, down to just 2 degrees by Aug. 10. They are closest to each other on the morning of Aug. 12, separated by less than one degree, and then they will gradually pull away from each other through the balance of the August: 3-degrees apart on Aug. 15. 7 degrees of separation (with a lovely crescent moon nearby) on Aug. 20, and by month's end, the gulf between them will have widened to nearly 20 degrees.
Beginning around Aug. 12 and continuing through at least Aug. 26, the innermost planet, Mercury, will poke above the east-northeast horizon about 45 to 90 minutes before sunrise and will be evident about 15 to 20 degrees to the lower right of Venus.
Saturn accommodates planet watchers by rising above the eastern horizon during the mid-to-late evening hours and will be favorably placed for viewing about halfway up in the southern sky between the hours of midnight and dawn. The famous ring system is evident in small telescopes, though they are only tilted about 3 degrees to our line of sight.
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Finally, there's Mars, feebly shining only as bright as a second magnitude star, it's visible low in the west-southwest sky and sets around 10 p.m. early in the month; closer to 9 p.m. by month's end.
In our schedule, remember that when measuring the angular separation between two celestial objects, your clenched fist held at arm's length measures roughly 10 degrees. Here, we present a schedule below which provides some of the best planet viewing times as well as directing you as to where to look to see them.
Mercury
Mercury climbs into view in the dawn sky during the first half of August. It shines only at 2nd magnitude on Aug. 10 but brightens rapidly nearly eight-fold to magnitude -0.1 by Aug. 19, also the very day it attains maximum angular separation (19 degrees west) from the sun. For mid-northern viewers, this elusive planet rises a bit north of due east some 1.5 hours before sunup through Aug. 26, becoming easy to spot without any optical aid. On Aug. 21, the narrow sliver of a waning crescent moon hovers 5 degrees above Mercury.
Venus and Jupiter
Venus and Jupiter are so bright that they draw special attention and admiration whenever they come fairly close to each other in the sky. On the morning of Aug. 12, they pass less than 0.9 degrees from each other, making for a head-turning sight in the east-northeast sky from 3 a.m. on. Jupiter is to the lower left of Venus before the conjunction this morning. After the conjunction, Jupiter will appear progressively higher and Venus lower. Venus shines at magnitude -4 but has now shrunk greatly since its glory days a few months ago, presenting a typically featureless gibbous form. Jupiter at magnitude -2 currently appears twice as large as Venus in telescopes. Also, during the mornings of Aug. 19 and Aug. 20, watch how a thinning crescent moon interacts with these two bright planets. On Aug. 19, about an hour before sunrise, take note of the moon appearing directly above Jupiter. On Aug. 20, Venus appears 4 degrees to the moon's lower right.
Mars
Mars shines among the stars of Virgo in the early evening sky. About 45 minutes after sunset on the evening of Aug. 26, search low in the west-southwest sky for a waxing crescent moon. Mars will be about a half-dozen degrees to its upper right. Binoculars will help.
Saturn
Saturn doesn't rise in the east until 2.5 hours after sunset when August begins, but it's up only an hour after sunset as August ends. Once Saturn is well clear of the horizon, the naked eye sees it as a sedate fleck of yellow-white no brighter than magnitude +0.8 in a rather empty part of the sky. During the late-evening hours of Aug. 11, the bright star situated to the lower left of the waxing gibbous moon will be the ringed world.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope and other publications.
Editor's Note: If you get a great photo of any of the planets and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
