The Sky This Week for August 20 to August 21
The Perseids may slowly fade, but there’s still plenty to see out there this week, including an important Sirius sighting.
By Richard Talcott
Saturday, August 20
• Asteroid 2 Pallas reaches opposition and peak visibility today. The second-biggest object orbiting between Mars and Jupiter glows at magnitude 9.2, bright enough to show up through almost any telescope. You can find it on the border between Pegasus and Equuleus, 4° due west of 2nd-magnitude Enif (Epsilon [e] Pegasi), the star that marks the nose of Pegasus the Winged Horse. The lovely globular star cluster M15 lies 2.5° north and a touch east of Pallas. The three objects lie about halfway to the zenith in the southeastern sky after darkness falls.
Sunday, August 21
• Look toward the south-southwest during evening twilight and you can’t miss Mars. The Red Planet shines brightly at magnitude –0.4 and remains visible until it dips below the horizon around midnight local daylight time. Mars resides on the border between Scorpius and Ophiuchus, crossing from the former to the latter constellation today. When viewed through a telescope, Mars’ orange-red disk spans 11″ and shows several subtle dark markings.
• The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 9:19 p.m. EDT. It then lies 228,074 miles (367,050 kilometers) away from us.
Source
Witches Of The Craft® 