Brilliant planet Venus and stellar signpost Spica grasp collectively in Virgo after sundown. They’ll stay shut for the following few days.
An hour after sundown, Venus and Spica sit shut collectively low within the west. The pair will stay about the identical distance aside over the following few days, as Venus strikes east by the sky. Credit score: Stellarium
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August 30: The Moon, Neptune, and Saturn
Within the night sky, blazing Venus is lower than 2° southwest of Spica, the brightest star in Virgo the Maiden. Over the course of the following two days, Venus will seem to slip to the higher left (east) within the sky relative to stationary Spica, remaining inside roughly 2° of the star because it does so.
The pair is simple to identify within the west as quickly because the Solar goes down and the sky begins to develop darkish. At magnitude –4.6, Venus will come out first, roughly 12° above the horizon 20 minutes after sundown. Magnitude 1.0 Spica will take a bit extra time to look — use the chart above to notice its place, and see how quickly you possibly can see it.
You may as well benefit from the pair by binoculars or a telescope. Within the latter, Venus will present a 39%-lit disk that stretches some 30” within the sky, a powerful dimension. It’s presently some 0.55 astronomical unit from Earth, the place 1 astronomical unit, or AU, is the typical Earth-Solar distance of 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
Dawn: 6:27 A.M.
Sundown: 7:33 P.M.
Moonrise: 9:02 P.M.
Moonset: 10:09 A.M.
Moon Part: Waning gibbous (83%)
*Occasions for dawn, sundown, moonrise, and moonset are given in native time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 10 P.M. native time from the identical location.
Alison Klesman is senior editor of Astronomy journal. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied quite a lot of matters, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.
