Abstract
With temperatures warm enough for long, lazy looks at the cosmos, August is an ideal time to camp, particularly if you want to catch the grand Perseids meteor shower—the year’s very best—which can rain down up to 100 meteors per hour. The late sunset is perfect for witnessing the rise of an orangey Full Moon at dusk, a much under-appreciated stargazing spectacle. If you can stay up late, it’s the perfect time to try photographing a star-trail, too. August also brings more to see in the Summer Triangle and a chance to consider the mysterious outer solar system.
Keywords
- Shooting stars
- Perseids
- Milky Way
- Summer Triangle
- Exoplanets
- Jupiter
- Moon
- Moon-rise
- Super-moon
- Sea of Shower s
- Bay of Rainbow s
- Sea of Vapor
- Sea of Cloud s
- Sea of Moisture
- Ocean of Storms
- North American Nebula
- NGC 7000
- Brocchi’s Cluster and Collinder 399
- Coat-hanger
- Sagitta
- M71
- Globular
- Sagittarius Arm
- Main sequence
- Lyra
- Cygnus
- Podcast
- Stellar motion
- Photography
- Star-trail
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Carter, J. (2015). August: The Moon, Meteors and the Milky Way. In: A Stargazing Program for Beginners. Astronomer's Pocket Field Guide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22072-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22072-7_8
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