"Good Night, Moon"

The waning gibbous

20.0 day old moon

71.8% lit

Monday, August 26 (click here)

The Moon rises around 11 p.m. now, about a fist-width at arm's length to the right of the Pleiades.

Perseus is up in good view in the northeast by late evening. By then you can catch Algol, Beta Persei, near the bottom of one of its eclipses: shining at only magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1. Mid-eclipse is around 11:54 p.m. EDT (8:54 p.m. PDT). Algol stays this dim for about two hours, and it takes several additional hours to fade and to rebrighten....

The Sagittarius Teapot and the surrounding rich Milky Way are highest in the south right after dark in late August. The brightest puff of the summer Milky Way seems to rise like steam from the Teapot's spout. All of the labeled objects here are good binocular targets under a dark sky. Click the image for a larger view.

Akira Fujii