Sky This Week for August 5 to August 7, 2016

By Richard Talcott

 

Friday, August 5

A slightly fatter crescent Moon stands 1° below Jupiter in this evening’s sky. Look for the soft glow of earthshine — sunlight that has reflected off our planet to the Moon and then back to our eyes — on the 90 percent of Luna that the Sun is not illuminating directly. Jupiter shines brilliantly at magnitude –1.7 and remains a beacon in the western sky after sunset all week. When viewed through a telescope, the giant planet shows a disk that measures 32″ across and features two dark equatorial cloud belts.

Saturday, August 6

The variable star Algol in Perseus reaches minimum brightness at 5:33 a.m. EDT. If you start watching it late yesterday evening (it rises in the northeast around 10 p.m. local daylight time), you can see its brightness diminish by 70 percent over the course of about five hours as its magnitude drops from 2.1 to 3.4. This eclipsing binary star runs through a cycle from minimum to maximum and back every 2.87 days.

Sunday, August 7

Although Saturn reached its peak about two months ago, it remains a lovely sight. You can find the planet nearly due south around 9 p.m. local daylight time. Saturn shines at magnitude 0.4 and appears far brighter than any of the surrounding stars in southwestern Ophiuchus. When viewed through a telescope, the planet measures 17″ across while its dramatic ring system spans 39″ and tilts 26° to our line of sight.

 

Reference:

 

The Astronomy Magazine

 

Your Daily Sun & Moon Data for Friday, August 5, 2016

The Sun
Sun Direction: ↑ 101.87° ESE
Sun Altitude: 42.69°
Sun Distance: 94.291 million mi
Next Equinox: Sep 22, 2016 9:21 AM (Autumnal)
Sunrise Today: 6:03 AM↑ 68° East
Sunset Today: 7:57 PM↑ 292° Northwest
Length of Daylight: 13 hours, 53 minutes

 

The Moon
Moon Direction: ↑ 92.42° E
Moon Altitude: 11.68°
Moon Distance: 244715 mi
Next Full Moon: Aug 18, 20164:26 AM
Next New Moon: Sep 1, 20164:03 AM
Next Moonset: Today9:39 PM
Current Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent
Illumination: 8.1%

Reference:

timeanddate.com

 

Good Friday Morning, my sweets! Can you believe it, two days in a row now, gee! We might tired from working so much and need to take a vacation to get over working so hard. Sure, right, we are so rested now, you ought to hear the place. It is a madhouse.

 

Anyway, you didn’t come here to hear that, you came here to see who won the raffle. We had the drawing first thing this morning. We now have a winner. I have tried to come up with a way to announce the winner without giving too much personal information. I should have told everyone to put your I.D.’s on the PayPal comment section but I didn’t. When the winner is announced, if we do not give enough info, we will contact you tomorrow by email. If you do recognize yourself, then please contact us sometime today. You do this by using our email, witches_of_the_craft@outlook.com. Again, if we do not hear from you today, we will be in touch tomorrow. And now for the winner of our Winter Survival Raffle…..

 

Congratulations,

S. McCutcheon
Email starting with: Dracdauter

 

I am a security freak these days. You can never be too careful. I think this is enough information that this individual will recognize themselves. If you recognize yourself now and are here, let us know. I should add, please let us know which item you would like and your complete address. When we receive this, we will contact you with a confirmation email.

 

Thanks to all of you, Winter is no longer a problem. I can’t say it enough, we love you all. We are very proud to call each of you our brothers and sisters!

 

Thank you again,

We Love You!

Lady A