Spacetime Sunday: August at night

August is a great month for the Moon- or I should say Supermoon! There is also the Perseid meteor shower, and plenty of planetary happenings. Eyes up!

The Moon
This month, on the 10th, the moon will be super-duper-extraly-supermoonful. It is not only a full moon on the same day as perigee, but at the same hour! So its the brightest of our three in a row supermoon roll. Make sure you don’t miss it, especially when it is rising and so nearer the horizon, thanks to the tricks that our eyes get up to which make it seem even bigger! Moonrise for my area takes place around 8:12pm, and you can check yours here: Moonrise/Moonset

Perseids
The only annoying thing is that the Perseids are due to peak on the 11-13th Aug..and the moon will be nearly full and hence very bright. So the best time to try and see these meteors are either early August, around the two hours before dawn, or nearer the 11-13th after moon set or just before moonrise…though that may be difficult. But still try!
The Perseids occur every August as we swing through a Comet trail. As the name suggests, they will originate from Perseus, in the NNE sky.

Planets
Neptune is nearest earth on Aug 29, and will be visible with binoculars in Aquarius. This is the last planet before the Kuiper belt, and the outer reaches of our solar system. This was a hypothetical planet, only implied in equations before its discovery in 1846. Neptune is a really interesting place, and you can find out more about it here: Neptune Facts

The other planets visible this month are Mars and Saturn in the southwest sky, Saturn lovely and bright and higher than Mars. The moon will cross in between the two one hour after sunset on the 3rd which will look great.

On august 18th, looking east before dawn, Jupiter and Venus will look like they are touching, appearing on the sky very close together. This is worth getting up for!

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/Venusaug14.jpg

The ISS is also back over england, and I’m determined to see that at least once this month! You can find out where it’ll be near you in the links on my Astronomy Page 

Spacetime Sunday: What is a Supermoon and how does it happen?

The lucky ones who had clear skies would have seen the moon looking bigger and brighter than usual through telescopes (Astronomers say you can’t detect the difference with the naked eye), but how does it happen, and why?

I wanted to try and write this myself, but after doing some research online, I found a site that put it so great that I couldn’t put it better myself, so here’s the place to find out!

http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-supermoon

There’s a couple of great facts in there, and plenty of pictures so you can see what’s happening, here are some of my highlights:

The full moon on August 10, 2014, will present the closest supermoon of the year (356,896 kilometers or 221,765 miles).

Will the tides be larger than usual at the July, August and September 2014 full moons? Yes, all full moons (and new moons) combine with the sun to create larger-than-usual tides, but perigee full moons (or perigee new moons) elevate the tides even more.

Did you get any good photos? Please share them with us!

Finally, a little note; I have been absent for a long time and I’m sorry! Along with my dissertation and finals taking over my spring, I took some time off after in Portugal and am now fully back on track. Graduation is next week! eek!