Hello everyone! There are still four planets in the early morning sky and two in the evening sky, but something else is happening in the early morning sky.
Just look at the dark sky above and you might see bright streaks of light.
This week is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Hero Perseus, the origin of the meteor is five fist heights above the northern horizon, from which it shoots southward.
Bring a blanket and lie down to watch the shooting stars.
The Perseid meteor shower is a remnant of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed near Earth in 1993. If you’re very lucky and not too cloudy, you can see up to 100 meteors per hour. Watch your early morning sky all week long!
Venus is visible near the eastern horizon. Mars is near overhead in the eastern sky and close to Aldebaran, the bright red eye of Taurus.
To find Jupiter and Saturn, turn completely and face west. Saturn is two fists left of due west and close to the horizon, and Jupiter is four and a half fists above Saturn.
If you see a bright star near the Full Moon on Friday, it’s not a star, it’s Saturn!
The summer solstice has passed and the days are getting shorter. This month he loses 16 minutes of evening sunlight, but he only loses 4 minutes of morning sunlight.
shadowless day
And now that we’re past the summer solstice, we’ll have another seasonal marker next week.
We live below the Tropic of Cancer, so the sun passes through the northern sky, which never happens in the continental United States.
The Sun has been in the northern half of the sky since April, and will appear directly overhead again next Wednesday at 12:25 PM.
I call it a shadowless day. So mark her calendar for next Wednesday, August 17, and see if you can find your shadow at 12:25.
Both Saturn and Mercury are in the evening sky this week. To find Mercury, watch one of its spectacular sunsets.
If clouds form, when it starts to get dark, a bright star should appear near the horizon where the sun has disappeared.
Then turn around completely and face east. Saturn should be two fists to the right of due east and one fist above the horizon.
It’s also a good time to look for the most famous stars in the sky. Just face north and you can see the Big Dipper.
The famous constellation is heading west and will disappear from Guam’s evening skies in September.
In the continental United States, the Big Dipper can be seen year-round due to its proximity to the Polaris, the most famous star in the sky.
Here on Guam, no constellations are visible year-round, so close to the equator that the North Star is just 13 degrees above the horizon.
August, when the Big Dipper is still in the sky, is a good time to spot Polaris on Guam. Use the end star of the dipper bowl to point right and to the ground.
It runs right over a fairly bright star halfway over the horizon. It’s Polaris and it’s due north! Enjoy!
Pam Eastlick has been coordinator of the former University of Guam Planetarium since the early 1990s. She has written this astronomy column weekly since her 2003. Please send any questions or comments to life@guampdn.com.
