In the Sky This Month
The Moon rolls past one bright light after another this month, including the brilliant planets Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. At the same time, two of the signature star patterns of summer, Scorpius and Sagittarius, roll low across the south. Scorpius really does look like a scorpion, while the brightest stars of Sagittarius, which represents a centaur holding a bow and arrow, form a wide teapot.
August 3: Pegasus
Pegasus, the flying horse, is in view in the east and northeast shortly after the sky gets completely dark. Look for the four stars forming the Great Square of Pegasus. The square is tilted as Pegasus rises, so it resembles a diamond.
August 4: 61 Cygni
61 Cygni, the first star to have its distance accurately measured, is in Cygnus, the swan, which is high in the east at nightfall. 61 Cygni is to the lower right of Deneb, the swan’s tail. Under dark skies, it’s just visible to the eye alone.
August 5: Moon and Aldebaran
The bull’s eye, represented by the star Aldebaran, follows the Moon as they climb the eastern sky in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. It is the bright orange star to the lower left of the Moon.
August 6: Star Clouds
The band of light that outlines the disk of the Milky Way galaxy is a rare sight. To see it, you need especially dark skies. And as luck would have it, there’s no moonlight for the next few evenings, although you still need to escape city lights.
August 7: Dark Clouds
The glowing band of the Milky Way is divided by a dark rift across its length. The rift consists of dense clouds of dust. The dust grains absorb the light from the stars behind them, making it look like there are almost no stars at all.
August 8: M11
The star cluster M11 is well up in the south this evening, in the constellation Scutum, the shield. Because its brightest stars resemble a flock of ducks, it’s also called the Wild Duck cluster. Through binoculars, it looks like a patch of mist.
August 9: Ara
The mythical victory of the gods of Olympus over their predecessors, the Titans, is commemorated in the stars, as the altar where they swore allegiance to each other. It’s the constellation Ara, below the tail of the scorpion.
Source
StarDate
Witches Of The Craft® 
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