Welcome to the University of Texas Skywatchers Report for Monday August 24th through Sunday August 30th.
The full moon for the month of August is on Thursday night into Friday morning, depending on your time zone, so we’ll have a waxing gibbous moon for the first half of the week and a waning gibbous moon for the weekend. This full moon is known as the Grain Moon and the Green Corn Moon.
After the solar eclipse at the new moon two weeks ago, the Moon, Earth, and Sun are still aligned for there to be a lunar eclipse at the full moon on Thursday night. This eclipse is technically a partial eclipse since the moon doesn’t quite go completely into the deepest part of the Earth’s shadow but will reach a maximum eclipse of over 90%. For Austin, the eclipse will start a little after 9:30 p.m. and will reach maximum eclipse at 11:12 p.m. The moon will exit the umbra of the Earth’s shadow at 12:51 a.m., marking the end of the partial eclipse.
Venus continues to shine brightly in the west after sunset and is setting at 9:50 p.m., a little less than two hours after the sun.
Saturn is rising just as Venus sets and will be to the right of the waning gibbous moon on Sunday evening.
In the morning skies, Mars is rising at 2:50 a.m. and Jupiter follows at 5:25 a.m., about an hour and a half before the sun. Mercury is in superior conjunction with the sun on Thursday when it will pass behind the sun from the Earth’s perspective and will reemerge into our early evening skies in September.
Public viewing on UT campus telescopes will resume for the fall semester next week. Please check back for details on starting dates and times.
While you’re waiting for Austin-area telescope viewing to resume, you can tune in to McDonald Observatory live streams from west Texas. You can view past events on the McDonald Observatory YouTube channel and you can follow the observatory on social media and at McDonaldObservatory.org to be notified of future events.
Thank you for calling the University of Texas Skywatchers Report.
