THE SKY NIGHT VIEW OF THE LAST MONTH AUGUST.

This is the view to the August night sky. This month was great for seeing planets in the early evening.
Over in the west, the planet Venus was still visible high and bright in the constellation of Virgo, and Venus was at its maximum elongation from the Sun, so it was seen in a truly dark sky.

At these times Venus was bright enough even to cast a shadow. The thin crescent Moon was near to Venus on the evening of the 14th.
During August the four brightest planets were arranged in a line from the western horizon over to the eastern horizon. Starting with Venus and looking towards the left the gas giant planet Jupiter was seen in the constellation of Libra, and the Moon was closed to it on the 17th.

The next planet towards the left was the ringed planet Saturn in the constellation of Sagittarius, and during early August evenings Saturn was seen approximately toward the south. The rings were truly spectacular in any small telescope, and the Moon was close to this planet on the 20th.

Looking a little more to the east (left) the red planet Mars was seen in the constellation of Capricorn, and on the 23rd the nearly full Moon was close. Mars just passed opposition and as suggested last month (July) it experienced a planet wide dust-storm. This made it difficult to see any details on its surface even with the large telescope. When these dust-storm conditions existed, it made Mars visibly brighter and slightly more reddish in color than normal.

The night of the 12th August was the peak of the traditionally good Perseids meteor shower, the Moon was out of the sky at that time, so it was nice and dark to see the faintest meteors. As with any meteor shower the best time to see one was after midnight and with luck and patience a bright meteor was seen every few minutes.

The Moon was at last quarter on the 4th, new on the 11th first quarter on the 18th and full on the 26th of August.

On 29th a giant and massive Asteroid 2016 NF23 passed about 3 million miles from the Earth.