For August, the Full Moon will be on August 6 the Green Corn moon in American Indian lore. The first week of August will thus find the Moon waxing and visible each evening.

The morning of August 12 is the peak for the Perseid Meteor Shower, our best annual celestial fireworks show. If you have a dark sky site, you will see about a meteor every 2-3 minutes from midnight until dawn.

The waxing crescent moon passes close to Saturn and Mercury in evening twilight on August 22, with all three objects in a straight line along the SW horizon about 8:15 p.m. CDT, with Mercury in the middle…a great photo op for digital camera users with a tripod mount shooting in night shot mode.

Also available as the next month begins is wonderful video exploring the August 2009 sky, featuring many different objects, available from the Hubble Space Telescope website at: http://hubblesite.org/explore_ astronomy/tonight's_sky/.

Mercury will be visible in the evening sky in mid August. It passes 3 degrees south of Saturn in the twilight on August 17, and both are in the line with the slender waxing crescent moon on August 22.

Venus dominates the dawn for the rest of the year, the bright morning star. Mars, too, lies in the morning sky.

But August belongs to Jupiter, rising at sunset at opposition on August 14 for the Escambia Amateur Astronomers (EAA) Ft. Pickens Sky Interpretation session. It will be the brightest object in the evening sky this August. Jupiter is now sporting not one but two big red spots, the second one in the northern hemisphere developing last spring, and its four large Galilean moons, spotted with a telescope 400 years ago this October, are constantly moving in front of it and casting their shadows on the giant of the planets.

Hercules is overhead, with the nice globular cluster M-13 marked on your sky map and visible in binocs. Several other good globular clusters are also shown and listed on the best binoc objects on the map back page.

The brightest star of the northern hemisphere, Vega dominates the NE sky. Below Vega are the two bright stars of the Summer Triangle; Deneb is at the top of the Northern Cross, known as Cygnus the Swan to the Romans. It is one of the most luminous stars in our Galaxy, about 50,000 times brighter than our Sun.

To the south, Antares rises about the same time in Scorpius. It appears reddish (its Greek name means rival of Ares or Mars to the Latins) because it is half as hot as our yellow Sun; it is bright because it is a bloated red supergiant, big enough to swallow up our solar system all the way out to Saturn's orbit!

Just a little NE of Sagittarius, and much brighter, giant Jupiter dominates the SE sky in Capricornus. Any small scope will reveal what Galileo marveled at in 1609; four large moons, all bigger or similar to ours in size, orbit it in a line along Jupiter's equator. So get out the old scope, and focus on Jupiter for a constantly changing dance of the moons around the giant world.

EAA plans to go to Ft. Pickens on August 14 for the Perseid meteor watch. We will set up around sunset at Battery Worth picnic area, so bring out your lawn chairs and beach blankets.

The Pavilion at Pensacola Beach will the the location for sidewalk astronomy gazes on July 24-25, August 28-29, and September 25-26. In the evening, of course, scopes will be set up, clear skies permitting, to allow you to observe Jupiter, the moon, satellites such as the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope, nebulae, clusters, double stars, and other celestial treats. Free star charts and information on the EAAA will also be provided.

For more information on the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, visit their website, or call the sponsor, Dr. Wayne Wooten at PJC at (850) 484-1152, or e-mail him at wwooten@pjc.edu.